Am I a good girl?
by Cold 105
Summary: The Doctor is back in Arendelle, this time as a different man. But when Elsa and Anna enter the TARDIS, it whisks them to a very cold future… in a strangely familiar place. Sequel to "Unless there is children crying".
1. Do you want to enter the TARDIS?

**Author's Notes** : This story takes place shortly after Frozen Fever and sometimes during Season 8 of the new Doctor Who series, and will contain spoilers for season 7.  
It is **not** necessary to have read my previous story " _Unless there is children crying_ " to enjoy it (but of course it's better if you read it ;) ).

* * *

Elsa pulled up the next letter from her stack and sighed as she recognised the seal on the envelope. Weselton again. She quickly opened it and briefly glanced through it. Once again, the duke was "politely" asking the Queen of Arendelle to reconsider her decision to sever all trades, and so on.

Elsa sighed again, and struggled for a few seconds to suppress a sneeze. The fever that had affected her on Anna's birthday was now a memory, but she remained on alert for other symptoms and tried to avoid sneezing as much as possible, even though her sneezes had apparently ceased to create Olaf's baby brothers.

The queen picked up a blank sheet of paper and dipped her quill in the ink bottle. As she began wording the usual rebuttal, her mind wandered once more over the events that had happened more than a year ago. Not for the first time, Elsa wondered how things would have turned out if she had acted differently on the day of her coronation and managed to avoid revealing her powers. For one thing, she would not have to write every month or so to Weselton that ordering to kill her was not a "deplorable misunderstanding" as he worded it. But then again she would probably still be frightened and alone, unable to control her powers and avoiding Anna, who would still be desperate enough to fall in the clutches of those like Hans.

 _I should have avoided to strike Anna when we were little instead_ , Elsa mused as she interrupted her writing to dip her quill in ink. She had thought about that countless times during her childhood, how moving her hand a mere inch in either direction would have spared Anna, sometimes even dreaming she had actually done it only to wake up in her frozen and lonely bedroom.

It had actually been one of her subjects of reflection during those long hours spent alone locked in her room. Would have that been enough? Would the accident have happened later, when her powers were greater, putting her sister's life even more at risk? Or would have she been able to better control them instead?

She had occasionally passed the time thinking about it, wondering about the best way to prevent herself from hurting Anna. She had even dreamt of being able to go back to that fateful day, and warn herself, but this simple fantasy brought more questions. How would she be able to convince her younger, carefree self that she was right? Would it not instead cause the accident? And what would it be like to talk with a younger version of oneself?

Now in retrospect, Elsa was somewhat grateful that this fantasy never came to pass. If she had managed to prevent this accident, it was very likely that Anna would have never met Kristoff and Olaf would probably never have existed either. That was the thing when dreaming about changing past events: you could not choose which ones would still happen afterwards. And sometimes, even the worst moments led to something wonderful.

Take this unwelcome fever during Anna's birthday. Elsa would have given anything for the illness to begin only a day after; she would have been able to sleep it off quietly in her room and offer her sister the birthday she deserved. And yet… those hours spent in bed with Anna caring for her were now a cherished memory, and Anna kept assuring her it had been the highlight of her birthday.

Then there was this memory of the day where she had hugged Anna on the frozen fjord, mere seconds after having believed her lost forever. That day had been the stuff of nightmares, of those you would be ready to sell your soul for them never to have happened. But she still remembered the sheer, unadulterated joy she had felt at hugging someone for the first time in thirteen years, and to have this person be her beloved sister. It had reminded her of the first time she had taken Anna in her arms when she was a baby and herself a little girl. The memory regularly came back to her as one she would cherish forever now, even though she was a bit ashamed of herself at remembering so fondly something that had been so close to a tragedy.

So maybe it was better that the past happened the way it did. It was not as if she could do anything about it anyway.

Elsa signed her letter and slumped in her chair. She had been working all morning and was really in need of a break, but she wanted to finish this stack of letters. It was amazing how work tended to pile up when you were sick, especially when you insisted on not offloading it to your secretaries and advisers. She reached for the next letter in her stack.

"Elsa!"

The shout, although muffled through the door, echoed in the corridor outside her study. It was accompanied, she heard now, by the frantic footsteps of someone running. Elsa could not prevent a little smile from forming on her lips as she recognised her sister's voice. Maybe she would have to take this break after all. She certainly would not fight much if Anna came to suggest one of her latest ideas.

"Elsa! Come quick!"

Anna half crashed into the door as she opened. She remained panting a few seconds, leaning on it, as Elsa stood up and walked to her. Finally she managed to speak between two gasps.

"Elsa! The box! The blue box! It's back!"

Elsa's eyes went wide. She knew what her sister was talking about. The mysterious box had appeared in the castle a few times during their childhood, and the people inside – a strange man called the Doctor, and two different women – had brought some emotional support to them at a time when they needed it. They had seen the box one last time, shortly after Elsa had managed to thaw the winter she had set on the country, but the lone man inside had been very different, even though he had insisted he was also called the Doctor.

The sisters had exchanged their stories about the mysterious box and its occupants, and had wondered time and again about who they could have been, and how this box could disappear and reappear. Anna held that the man was a wizard, and the women with him his apprentices, with the other man being one of his successor. Elsa had been trying to find a more rational explanation, but had been hard pressed to find one, even though she entertained a few wild theories that she had not dared sharing even with her sister.

The box appearing in the castle was an opportunity to learn more about this it. It was not something to be missed anyway, and was certainly a good excuse to take a break from the stack of letters. Elsa rushed out of the study in the wake of Anna and followed her at a brisk pace to the courtyard.

The box was there, blue and incongruous in the large space, getting curious glances from the people walking around it. It looked exactly how Elsa remembered, which was like nothing she knew. She still did not understand what "Police public call box" was supposed to mean exactly, for a start.

The sisters gathered in front of the box, trying to catch their breath.

"Do you think we should knock?" asked Anna, looking at the door hesitantly.

"Why would you knock?"

Anna jumped back with a little cry of surprise, and Elsa had to steel herself to avoid doing the same.

A man had appeared in the door frame of the box, looking like neither of the men they had seen there. He was far older, with grey hair and a wrinkled face, and piercing blue eyes staring at them under bushy eyebrows.

"Um… hello Sir" Elsa said hesitantly. "We thought you were the Doctor."

"I am the Doctor" the man said curtly. "Why would you knock?"

"We wanted to… talk?" Anna ventured.

"Talk about what?"

Elsa took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but we had been visited by someone in a magically disappearing blue box just like yours, and we wanted to see him again. But it seems there is more than one person using this box and…"

"No", cut the man. "There is only me, and this is my box. My TARDIS." He looked at them intently for a few seconds. "Oh wait, are you supposed to be the Princesses of Arendelle?"

Both sisters looked at each other, then back at the man.

"Yes we are" Elsa said eventually. "I'm Queen Elsa, actually, and this is my sister…"

"How old are you now?" he asked, squinting at them. He pointed to Elsa. "Your hair is white, does it mean you are old?" He leaned forward. "No, wait, that's not white, that's platinum blonde… Your species does not get platinum blonde hair with age, does it? One of you could create ice, right? Was it you, with the freckles?" he asked, pointing to Anna. He frowned. "There was one with the ice and one with the snowmen. Aaand… the sky. Something about the sky." He looked at them impatiently. "So? Which one is which?"

Anna hesitantly raised a hand. "I'm the one with the snowmen, Sir. My sister does the ice thing. How did you know…"

"I told you. I am the Doctor. I already visited you three times. You saw me twice with a bow tie and once with sand shoes. Is that right?"

Both sisters looked at the man intently. Try as she might, Elsa could not see the slightest resemblance between this man and the tall man with the bow tie, even though her memories of him were a bit blurred with time, nor with the sad stranger she had last seen exit the blue box.

"There was someone else in the box" Anna said eventually. "She was called Amy. A very nice woman. Did she change her face as well?"

The man looked down.

"No" he said, in a suddenly sad voice. "Well, yes she probably did, eventually. But she's not with me now."

Elsa had been struggling with her memories.

"Clara" she said at least, remembering. "There was also a woman named Clara. That was ten years ago."

"Clara is with P.E. right now. Why she would want to spend so much time with a soldier, I would not know, but that's Clara for you. So, can we proceed now, or is there anyone else you want news from?" He turned brusquely to Anna. "Before you ask, the snowmen we built together have all melted by now. There is no need to ask me how they are doing."

"So… It was really you?"

The man sighed exasperatedly.

"Is it so hard for you to understand? Are there really only pudding brains on this planet?" He pointed an accusatory finger at Elsa. "You, Platinum, can create a thermodynamic inversion at the subatomic level, and you still have trouble grasping the concept of people changing faces? I'm the Doctor. The same Doctor who built snowmen with you, and the same one to whom you gave that little ice sculpture that took ages to melt. I simply changed. Now there was something I had to tell you and I will finally do it now."

The man drew a deep breath. He then spoke in a more subdued voice, like someone who has to perform an unpleasant task but will not back up from it.

"I was with your parents on the ship the day they died."

Both sisters let out a gasp. Elsa heard a familiar creaking and realised that ice was forming under her feet. The man went on, looking from one to another with a softer expression.

"The ship had been… contaminated by an alien consciousness. It would have spread to anything wooden on Earth. Oh, and it was homicidal too. I tried talking to it, but all it wanted was to kill sailors."

Elsa reached out and seized Anna's hand, who clasped it tightly. She was relieved to feel the ice at her feet receding.

"So we had to sink the ship. Your parents were very brave. They remained until the end to make sure it was destroyed. I could not save them. I'm... sorry, I think" the man added gravely.

Elsa tried to speak but realised her voice was not steady enough for that. Instead, she drew her sister against her.

"They told me to ask you to speak to each other. But I kept missing the right time. I can travel in time, you see. And it appears that you not speaking to your sister was a fixed point in time, and I could not change it. So I never managed to arrive before you actually did it by yourselves. There, that's done."

"Wait, what?"

The man sighed exasperatedly at Anna's exclamation.

"Fixed point in time. Something that can't be changed. I did not realise it at first because I was probably too busy trying to impress my companion. I used to do that."

"You can travel in time? With this box?"

"Yes. It's called the TARDIS." The man hesitated a second. "You can take a look inside if you want. But don't! Touch! Anything!"

Elsa tried to pull her sister back, but Anna was drawn to the box like a magnet. The man stepped aside to let her pass the door. Elsa watched worryingly her sister disappear into the strange box.

"It's all right", the man said. "She will be safe as long as she does not touch too many buttons. You don't want to see it?"

"There will hardly be enough room for both of us here", Elsa said dismissively, trying to look through the slightly ajar door at what her sister was doing inside the box.

"Oh, it's a bit more spacious than it looks."

The queen looked the man squarely in the eye.

"My sister is a bit quick to trust strangers."

The man looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"This includes strange men and their disappearing boxes."

"Ooh, you were talking about me, then? But I'm not a stranger! I built snowmen with her, some centuries ago, give or take. For me, at least. For her, this must have been… two, three decades? Or maybe just one. It's hard to keep track."

Elsa crossed her arms and cocked her head.

"But you are not this man."

"Yes I am. The packaging may change, but I remain the same person. With a better taste in clothing."

"But this man was nothing like you!" Elsa burst. "He was taller, much younger, and that was only a dozen years ago. Not to mention… somewhat nicer" she added pointedly.

The man looked at her intently.

"And you were a frightened little girl who shut herself in her room because she was terrified of not controlling her powers" he said eventually. "People change with time. It is simply a bit more obvious when it happens to me."

Elsa, taken aback, was looking for a retort when Anna slowly exited the box, walking backward. She stood for a few seconds some feet from the door, looking at it in awe, then ran in a circle around the box, stopped, peeked through the door, before rushing back in the other direction, repeating this routine a few times. Eventually she stopped and ran to Elsa.

"You've got to see this, Elsa" she shouted excitedly. "It's not a box on the inside!"

"What?"

The man smiled, not unkindly, and opened the door of the box wide. Elsa gazed with incomprehension at the sight before her.

"There is a whole room inside" Anna babbled without stopping to catch her breath. "There are a lots of lights all around, and some big desk in the middle, and corridors leading away, and strange knobs and switches everywhere, and this big column at the centre, and…"

Elsa slowly walked to the box. As she reached the door frame, she gazed at the face of the man who was standing on the side. His defiant expression was off-putting, but there was something in his piercing blue gaze that indeed reminded Elsa of the bow-tied man somehow.

"You keep saying you are the doctor. Doctor of what? Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor."

"Do you heal people?"

"I try to help. Sometimes I don't fail too much."

Elsa looked intently at him one more time. She had noticed that her first impression of people were often the right ones. The Duke of Weselton had made her skin crawl when she had first been introduced to him. Hans had felt almost frightening, despite his polite smile, or maybe because of it. Kristoff had felt reassuring, although the fact that he had been rushing to Anna's side when she had first met him had probably influenced her judgement.

This man, this Doctor… felt dangerous, but kind at the same time. _And very alone._

Elsa stepped into the box.

Anna had not lied. The cavernous room had no right to be in such a small space. And yet it was there, full of strange lights and sounds, extending in corridors beyond what she could see. Her sister was still babbling excitedly, running back and forth around her, pointing at everything and commenting on it.

The Doctor joined them, then stepped up near the big strange console that occupied the middle of the room.

"This is my time machine, the TARDIS. She can move in space and time."

Anna gently led her hand on the console.

"Hello, TARDIS" she said softly.

"Anna!" Elsa hissed softly, "you were told not to touch anything."

"I was just saying hello to it. It's polite."

"It's a machine! You don't speak to Kristoff's sled."

"Well I could" Anna said sulkily. "If he was not looking. Besides, this TARDIS is not a sled. It feels… not like a machine."

"Your sister is rather perceptive for a pudding-brain" the Doctor said dryly. "The TARDIS is actually a twelve-dimensional…"

A bell rang loudly, incongruous in the strange metallic space. The Doctor started.

"It was not me!" Anna cried, hastily removing her hands from the console while slowly turning crimson. "I did not touch any button!"

"No, it's not you" the Doctor scolded, running frantically around the console and hitting various switches. "There is a temporal alteration… oh no, no, no, don't do that, hold on…"

The floor shook as if they were on a ship in a storm. Elsa managed to keep her balance, but Anna crashed into her and both sisters went down, as another sound filled the room. It was the strange complaint, rising and falling, that they had associated with the arrival and departure of the box. The unseen bell rang another time.

"No!" the Doctor was shouting exasperatedly to the large cylinder that extended above the console. "I did not ask you to take off! I don't want to travel with them! I was only showing them the interior!" The bell rang another time. "And stop doing that! If there is a temporal anomaly, show me what it is instead of fleeing it!"

The whole room shook. Sparks flew from the walls and the console. Both sisters clung to each other as the floor rocked in various directions.

The Doctor was running around the console, frantically hitting switches and knobs. The bell rang again. Then the shaking subsided, as the groaning from the central column became more regular.

"There! It's stabilised" the Doctor shouted.

There was the almost musical chord that the girls had associated with the disappearance of the box. Silence fell again in the big room. Anna and Elsa scrambled to their feet.

"What happened, Doctor? Was it my fault?" Anna asked, brushing herself off, as Elsa noted with some satisfaction that there was only the slightest amount of frost on the floor where she had fallen.

"Maybe" the Doctor grunted, looking at various blinking panels on his console. "Something scared the TARDIS away when you entered. Now I'll have to reset the temporal coordinates but first, I must know where we are. I need to understand what scared her."

"Was that true? That you could travel in time and space."

"Yes, it is!" the Doctor said in exasperation, as he strode toward the door.

"So we could be… in another country?"

"Or planet" the Doctor said, yanking the door open.

A gust of cold wind hit his face as he stepped out, followed by the two sisters.

"Wow" Anna said in an awed voice.

The courtyard, full of the summer sun, had disappeared. They were now in a stone corridor. There was snow on the floor, and ice on the walls. The wind was blowing from a large gap in the wall a dozen feet away.

Elsa shuddered. This dilapidated corridor brought back dark memories.

"Where are we, Doctor?"

The Doctor licked a finger and held it up.

"Still Earth" he said eventually. "Some decades in the future. We did not jump very far." He looked hesitant for a second. "I wonder why she brought us here…" he mused.

Anna was looking around her curiously. Elsa glanced at her sister, clad in her light summer dress, and realised she was shivering.

"Anna! Get back into the… the TARDIS? It's very cold here."

"I'm OK!" she said through chattering teeth. "This is… amaz… zing, Elsa! We are i...in anoth...ther pl...place… and in th… the fut...ture!"

"Oh, seriously!" the Doctor said with exasperation. "Get back in, take the first door to the right then the second to the left, there was a dressing room there last time I checked, and grab a coat or something. Or better, stay in there and don't touch anything. Or quickly learn how to talk without your teeth clacking against each other like that, clac clac clac" he loudly clacked his teeth a few times "it's really annoying."

"Please, Anna, go" Elsa said, taking her sister's hand and gently pulling her back. "It's freezing in here. I don't want you to catch a cold."

"F-fine" Anna stuttered. "B-but d-don't g-go ex-explo-ploring with-without m-me!"

She doubled back to the TARDIS and quickly ran inside.

"Are not you cold?" the Doctor asked curiously. "It's almost minus 40 degrees."

"No… the cold never bothered me actually. I think it came with my powers. Are _you_ not cold?"

"Time Lord physiology. I can be as cold or warm as I need."

"Time Lord? Is that a real title?"

The Doctor did not answer. He reached into his coat and retrieved a metal stick. As he waved it around, the stick emitted a whistling sound. Elsa squinted, looking at it.

"The man with the bow tie… you… had something like this, right?"

"Sonic screwdriver. Always carry a reliable tool with you, you never know when it can come in handy." He looked at the side of the stick and muttered something under his breath, frowning.

"What does it do, exactly?" Elsa asked, following him along the ruined corridor and away from the gap in the wall. The Doctor turned round a corner and stopped in front of a sturdy wooden door in a better kept wall of the corridor.

"Now we are getting somewhere" he said, looking at it. "It's locked. What do you make of it?"

Elsa looked at him cautiously.

"It means you don't like to answer direct questions?"

The Doctor smiled.

"Of course not. What would be the point if people always answered your questions? Life would be boring. Simpler, but very, very boring."

He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the door. There was a whistling sound and a click. Elsa gasped.

"So that's how the man… you… opened my door all those years ago." She refrained from telling him she had barricaded herself for months after that for fear of Anna being able to open it as easily and had eventually asked her parents to change the lock.

The Doctor cautiously opened the door. Elsa stepped back to cast a glance at the TARDIS in the other end of the corridor.

"Is my sister safe in there?"

"Young lady, the TARDIS is one of the safest places in the universe. As long as your sister refrains from doing something foolish, she is as safe as she could be."

Elsa bit her lip, hoping that the Doctor's definition of foolish did not mean being Anna's normal self. After a last glance at the box, she followed him inside.

They had entered what looked like an antechamber. There was a set of doors in the opposite side. Elsa looked a the torn tapestries on the wall. They looked strangely familiar. She slowly walked to one of them, but was interrupted by the sound of hinges creaking. The Doctor had opened the far doors wide, revealing a larger room where a fire was burning.

Elsa joined him in the room. The walls had been patched in places, and the windows had all been boarded shut. There were a few dishevelled chairs and a half broken table near the door.

"Doctor, what is this place?" Elsa asked, trying to make out the remnants of the crests on the walls. The light from the fire was not enough to see them clearly, but she was pretty sure they looked familiar. A horrible suspicion was growing in her mind. "Did we really… travel in time?"

"Yes" the Doctor answered curtly. He turned to her. "What do you make of this cold?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Cold is your area, right? Cryokinesis, insulation… Don't you have special cold senses?"

"What? No, I… I can control the ice and snow but… Listen, a year ago I could not even control what I did… Now I…"

"Is it the same cold than the one you can control?"

Elsa did not need concentrating. She had felt it the moment she had set foot out of the TARDIS. Only now did she dare put words on it.

"It's magical… It feels just like my snow, my ice. I can sense it. But I would never…"

There was a sound behind them. Two armed men had entered the room from a door lateral to the one they had used, carrying a torch. They wore tattered and heavy furs.

"Who goes there?" shouted one, raising his sword.

"Oh hello my good men, you must be the local guards. I always seem to meet guards first when I arrive somewhere. Could you please tell me…"

But the men were ignoring him. Their gazes had become fixed on Elsa, and they were whispering nervously to each other. Finally the first one pointed his sword at them.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"I'm the Doctor. And this is, err… the one with the platinum hair…"

Elsa said nothing. She was pretty sure now of what the motifs on the walls were, and the way the guards looked at her made her fear the worst.

"How did you come here?"

The Doctor sighed exasperatedly and produced a small paper in a black wallet.

"Surprise inspection. Is that enough for you?"

The man walked cautiously forward and peered at the paper.

"Wood stacking inspector?" he asked dubiously.

"What?" the Doctor said, briefly nonplussed. "Well of course. I'm sure that with this cold you have lots of wood stacked everywhere. Would not want to stack it incorrectly."

"Who is she?" the guard asked, pointing at Elsa.

"Her? Oh she's called… something. Platinum. She's with me. Wood stacking inspector in training."

The man was looking at her nervously. Elsa noted that the second one was staying behind, his body tense.

"Fine. Now can we please see your wood stacks so that we can inspect them?" the Doctor ordered.

The guard hesitated, before eventually showing the door from which he had come.

"This way".

The Doctor strolled with assurance through the door. Elsa followed him hurriedly, trying to avoid the gazes of the guards. The two men followed them at a respectful but still uncomfortably close distance.

* * *

Anna slowly exited the dressing room, looking with awe at the door sliding shut by itself behind her. This room had been at least twice as large as the one with the console, and full of an assortment of improbable clothes of all shapes and sizes. She regretted not having had more time to explore it, and possibly play dress up a bit. But she had to meet the Doctor and her sister, who were probably having fun on their own.

She had managed to find a magenta cape with assorted mittens, along with a blue and black dress and black boots that looked a lot like those she had bought from Oaken a year ago, when she had been looking for Elsa. Even if this had been a dark day, this outfit now brought back happy memories, as she had been wearing it when she had met Kristoff and Olaf, and finally reconnected with her beloved sister. She had also discovered that her cape had pockets inside, something that lacked in her own outfits.

She quickly crossed the cavernous console room, briefly pausing to address a little salute of the hand to the central column protruding from the console. She could not really tell why she did this; it simply felt like the right thing to do. Maybe it was the sheer impossibility of the TARDIS, or maybe there was something in the patterns of blinking lights and the distant sounds she heard, but she could not help feeling that the TARDIS was far more than a mere machine.

She closed the door behind her, instantly feeling the cold bite her exposed cheeks. Maybe she should have chosen a warmer garment, she thought as she pulled the cap on her head. She hesitated a second, looking left and right, before walking briskly toward the part of the wall that was dilapidated. Squinting in the cold wind, she looked through the gap in the wall, but only saw mounds of snow and occasional hints of buried buildings.

She moved past the gap, and reached a crossing corridor, which was just as dilapidated as the first one. She walked a few steps, wondering where Elsa and the Doctor had gone and whether she should try the other direction. Reaching another gap, she looked through it and got a better view of the landscape before her.

She recognised it instantly. It was entirely covered in snow, and probably ice as well, more than she had ever seen it, but there was no mistaking the shape of the fjord or the mountains surrounding it. She knew them only too well.

She had spent years looking at them through her window, after all.

* * *

 **A/N** : The temperature of minus 40 is the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit. I could not decide which scale the Doctor would be using so I chose the one temperature that is the same in both scales, since it was close to what I needed anyway.

I like Anna's winter outfit, so I decided the TARDIS would have a close copy of it in its wardrobe. It's not that big of a stretch.


	2. The age of ice

"Where are we going, Doctor?" Elsa whispered as she walked in front of the nervous guards.

"Somewhere where we can learn more about what happened."

"Do you know where we are exactly?"

"I have a hunch. Don't you?"

"I… don't know" she lied hesitantly.

Another man appeared, walking the corridor toward them. He also wore tattered furs, but was much older, with white hair and moustache. He slid aside to let them pass, looking fixedly at Elsa as they went by.

"You seem to be making quite an impression here" the Doctor whispered.

Elsa remained silent as they walked along the dark corridors, the guards in tow.

"How will Anna find us?" she suddenly asked.

"Oh, she will" the Doctor said, waving his hand. "Anyway, she probably chose to stay safely in the TARDIS, don't you think?"

"I'm… not sure. She… likes to move around a lot."

"Oh, the TARDIS is quite spacious, as you've seen. Plenty of places to move around. And swim. Does she know how to swim? There is a swimming pool. And a library. Does she know how to read?"

"Excuse me, sir?" It was one of the guards walking behind them. He pointed to a corridor branching from the gallery where they had been walking. As they turned to look at him, Elsa noticed the older man they had passed by was now also following them. "The wood is stacked over there."

"I'm sure it is" the Doctor said, walking on, ignoring the corridor.

"Sir!"

The older man walked up to them.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I have to ask you who this young woman is?"

"That's interesting" the Doctor said, facing him. "Why are you so interested in her?"

"Where are you from, Sir?"

"Away. What is this place?"

The man looked shocked.

"How can you not… how did you get here?"

"Very recently."

The man looked dubiously at the Doctor for some seconds. Then he gestured at the guards.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but we have to make sure of who you are." He glanced nervously at Elsa. "We can't take risks..."

Elsa had been looking fixedly at a relatively well kept tapestry on the wall. It happened to be illuminated by a nearby torch, and the motifs could still be easily made out. She was desperately hoping that they were common enough to not be a definite proof of their current location. Maybe they were on a different planet after all… one where people used crocus for decoration and castle layouts were very similar to those of her own?

She was yanked out of her frightened musings by a hand suddenly gripping her shoulder.

"Sorry, Madam. You must come with us now…"

Elsa barely suppressed a little yelp and jumped back, desperately concentrating on remaining calm.

"We are not going anywhere!" the Doctor bellowed.

But the older man ignored him. He was looking at the frost that had formed on his glove where he had touched Elsa's shoulder. He looked at her, his face slowly becoming a mask of horror. Elsa stepped closer to the Doctor, trying to thaw the ice she knew had been forming at her feet.

The man backed up slowly, pointing at her.

"It's her!" he shouted suddenly. "It's the Snow Queen! Stop her!"

Elsa saw the men behind him drawing their swords. The Doctor turned to her.

"Here's an important rule I want you to remember" he said quickly. "When I say run, you run. Run!"

He seized her hand as he yanked the torch from the wall and threw it on the floor in front of the men before running away, pulling Elsa behind him.

* * *

Anna ambled along the frozen corridors. She had now recognised where she was supposed to be in the castle. She occasionally found her way blocked by collapsed walls or a heap of ice, but she could still find her way just as surely as she did when the castle was… normal.

She kept wondering what had happened. Her first thought was that something or someone had flash-freezed the kingdom while they were in the TARDIS, and she hoped her sister was not responsible. But there was something else. The Doctor had said that the TARDIS had travelled in the future, no matter how incredible this sounded, and indeed everything looked… old. Furnitures were broken. Tapestries were tattered and ripped from the walls. She had seen first-hand what an unexpectedly fierce winter could do to the castle; this was way worse.

She stopped as she entered a new corridor. She knew that one very well. It was one of the places in the castle that had suffered the worst from the weather during Elsa's magical winter. The ice had been thick enough to pierce a hole in the wall. Anna had done her best to supervise the repairs herself, in an attempt to somewhat alleviate the painful memory of this episode to her sister, even though she perfectly knew that Elsa had personally funded all repairs needed by the winter she had cast on the country.

The hole had been finally fixed two months ago. Anna remembered visiting it with Elsa. But now the hole was here again, gaping as widely as ever. In fact, there was no trace of the repairs that she had seen being added to it over the last year. Anna ran her finger on the stone. It was ice cold, she could feel it through her mittens. No one had touched the masonry since the wall had collapsed.

* * *

Elsa was doing her best to keep up with the Doctor. Once again, she noted that heels and a gown were not particularly suited to running from guards.

"Can't you run faster?" the Doctor shouted. "They are going to catch us!"

The guards had been delayed by the torch the Doctor had thrown in their path, but they were now gaining ground fast. There were some shouts elsewhere in the castle.

"I was not planning on being chased by guards today!" Elsa shouted in retort.

"Can't you do some ice magic to delay them?"

"I don't want to hurt anyone!" Elsa snarled.

"Good for you!" the Doctor shouted back. "Maybe you should tell them about it!"

A door opened down on the corridor and two men rushed out of it, swords raised. The Doctor grabbed Elsa's hand and turned sharply in a branching gallery.

"And speeding us up? That would not hurt anyone!"

Elsa tried to think, as well as quell the rising panic inside her.

"Do you know how to skate, Doctor?" she shouted eventually.

"I don't remember if I know!" he shouted back. "But I'm a fast learner!"

Elsa concentrated, which was not easy while running with people yelling behind them. She did her best to ignore the fear that was slowly creeping in her mind. _If this really is Arendelle and if people hate me so much…_

"Any time you want" the Doctor shouted, grabbing her hand again to help her keep up. "Unless you would like to chat with them!"

Elsa slammed her foot on the floor at her next step. Ice spread in front of them, filling the corridor. She looked down at the Doctor's boots and waved her free hand. Ice skates appeared under them just as he was about to slip. Shouts erupted behind them and she heard a sword clatter on the floor. _I hope no one falls and get hurt._

The Doctor laughed as he picked up speed on his skates, as Elsa glided gracefully along him. They turned sharply at the end of the corridor. Elsa briefly glanced at the men in their pursuit attempting to cautiously make their way over the ice.

"Well done" the Doctor shouted. "By the way", he added cheerfully, "I don't think I know how to skate after all!"

The Doctor skidded to a halt after turning a few times over himself. Shouts were echoing all around them. The grey-haired man hopped in front of a door that opened on the side of the corridor. Elsa was looking around her, trying to recognise her surroundings. She was sure this part of the castle looked familiar.

"Can you remove these?" the Doctor asked, pointing at his skates, as he worked the sonic screwdriver on the lock of the door.

Elsa had to concentrate to make the ice disappear. She felt the fear and doubt spread into her mind again. _Where is Anna? I need her._

The lock clicked. The Doctor grabbed Elsa's hand and whisked her inside, then slammed the door behind them. The sonic screwdriver whistled again and the lock clicked again.

"Doctor", Elsa panted. "Where are we? _When_ are we?"

"In your castle, in the future" the Doctor answered curtly. "Hush" he intimated, pressing his ear to the door.

They heard shouts, muffled behind the wood, and people clomping cautiously over the frozen floor. They slowly receded in the distance.

"Around fifty years in your future" he resumed. "I was not entirely sure at first with this cold, but the air definitely smells like the end of the 19th century."

"We are still in Arendelle! What happened?"

"I don't know. Something altered the climate. Would you be able to do something like this?"

"I… did it. Once. Last year. Well…last year for me. But I reversed it. I made everything normal again!"

"Then maybe you had a relapse. Can you stop this cold now?"

Elsa looked at the Doctor, and suppressed a gasp. She felt her dread rise up by the second. She tried to think of Anna. The hope that her sister was safely in the incredible TARDIS, playing dress up or exploring it, calmed her somewhat. She concentrated.

She had tried once, during the winter, to thaw the snow that covered the country. She had managed to make some of the snow around the castle disappear all right, but it had felt hard, as if intruding into the normal order of seasons like that was fighting the whole of nature. She could freeze things without trouble, but thawing what was not her doing was much harder.

Elsa felt the ice around her, deeply set in the ground and the water, and the cold in the air. It was everywhere, permeating every stone of the castle. She suspected that it was spreading well beyond it. She thought of her sister, and tried to thaw it.

There was a little glittering sound as Elsa felt the air around her warm up. Silvery strands erupted from the walls around them as ice reverted back into magic…

Elsa recoiled as if struck. The cold reasserted itself violently, disobeying her. It did not feel like the nature resisting had; this was magic escaping her, as if she had not been in control any more.

Elsa wavered. The Doctor caught her awkwardly and steadied her.

"What happened?"

"I don't know… I can't… I can't control the cold. It's as if… I can't control my powers any more."

"Could it be that something stronger than you is controlling the cold?"

Elsa looked at the Doctor. Had she indeed felt her powers escaping her, or was it something else enforcing this cold?

"It's possible… But what could…"

"Hello? Who's there?"

The Time Lord and the Queen jumped. For the first time, they looked around them at the room where they had taken shelter. There was a large bed, near a fireplace where embers were glowing. Someone was moving from under the heavy covers. Elsa gasped and looked at the Doctor, then at the door.

"Is there someone here?" The voice wavered and cracked.

A shape sat up in the bed. In the gloom, Elsa could make out what looked like a tangled mass of white hair over a frail frame. The Doctor walked toward the bed.

"Hello" he said reassuringly. "Sorry to have woken you up. We were simply… visiting."

The person on the bed turned to the night stand and fiddled a little before lighting up a candle, then raised it toward the newcomers. Elsa looked at the room, trying to make out the details in the dim light of the candle.

"We were simply trying to find some information about this place" the Doctor kept on. "Could you tell us why..."

But the person on the bed ignored him, brandishing the candle in Elsa's direction.

"Elsa?!"

* * *

Anna was trudging slowly through the snow that covered the courtyard. She could still make out the buildings surrounding it under the white mounds, enough to trigger her memories. Less than a month ago, she had discovered Elsa's surprise birthday there, and hear Kristoff sing his love for her. And mere minutes ago, she had dragged Elsa there, to see the mysterious blue box, which she now knew to be called the TARDIS.

She had trouble believing this was the same place. Everything was covered in densely packed, frozen snow. Even during Elsa's accidental winter things had never been like that. Without the unmistakeable shape of the fjord and the mountains surrounding it, she could have sworn this was a place that simply looked like the Arendelle castle.

The princess walked slowly toward the ruined gate, passing by two mounds of snow and ice where the fountains had been. One of the large doors was still hanging from its hinges to the ruined archway, mainly held in place because of the ice. The other had disappeared, but may have been buried under the snow that crunched under Anna's feet.

She thoughtfully felt the fabric of the coat she had borrowed from the TARDIS, and dimly wondered what the material was. It was not much thicker than her own winter garments back home, wherever or whenever home was, but felt much warmer. The air felt incredibly colder than anything she had ever experienced, but she still felt comfortably warm.

The sight awaiting beyond the gate managed to make Anna shiver when the cold could not. It was eerily reminiscent of the view she was used to when exiting the castle, only with heaps of snow and ice replacing the buildings here and there. And an absolute lack of any living soul.

The princess crossed the bridge to the city and walked slowly through the snow-covered streets, unable to suppress a slight feeling of awe at the incredible spectacle. It was like walking in a snow covered landscape and trying to recognise the features you were used to. There was only this nagging question, at the back of her mind, that she desperately tried to ignore.

 _If I'm in the future, when did this happen? And how?_

Of course, this was not really the question. Anna was doing her best to avoid even thinking the actual question. And wondering if she had really been going in the direction the Doctor and Elsa had taken. She should have joined them by now. On the other hand, she was drawn by these incredible landscapes as if they had been a heap of chocolate.

Anna realised she had reached what was probably the city main square. She could dimly distinguish the shapes of the various stalls lined up there, all of them abandoned and buried under snow. She vaguely wondered if Oaken's travelling sauna would be there somewhere. She could use some warm steam.

Raising her head, the princess realised that the big spike of ice towering above the square was actually the maypole that was erected there in celebration of the summer. She had missed the ceremony this year, as she had been tending to her ill sister. Everything around it was literally frozen in place.

Anna started as she thought recognising the remnants of decorations around the large square. They were covered in ice, but she could make out drapes and ribbons adorning the surrounding houses. They had not been there this summer.

The princess reached a mound of snow at the bottom of a house and attempted to climb it. She managed to reach the top at the third try and pulled at a frozen ribbon, which snapped neatly, making her lose her balance and slide at the bottom of the mound. Anna got up slowly, massaging her backside, and looked at the ribbon. The patterns were unmistakable under the layer of ice: this was the royal emblem of Arendelle, and it was used as a decoration only when celebrating a royal event, such as a birth. Or a coronation.

Anna looked up toward the north at the mountains towering over the city. For the first time, she noticed the dark clouds topping them.

A shout made her jump. Turning, she discovered a sled slowly making its way through the snow covered streets. Her heart jumped as she saw that the driver wore the traditional garment of ice harvesters, but she quickly realised it was not Kristoff. The man was middle-aged with grey hair and a beard. His sled was much larger than Kristoff's, requiring four reindeer to pull it. It was loaded with various packages, and a few people huddled among them.

Anna calmed down, almost relieved that Kristoff was not to be found in this incomprehensible and disquieting place. It helped make it feel a little more like a bad dream. Maybe she was dreaming this, and the Doctor had never come back to take them in his magic TARDIS.

The driver of the sled had seen her and was now heading toward her, slowing his sled down.

"Do you need help?" he called.

Anna walked hesitantly up to the sled. The driver pulled the reins. She realised his clothes were much thicker than whatever she had seen Kristoff wear. The people in the sled were huddled together at the back under heavy blankets.

"You should not stay out there too long" the man said. "The cold will get you much faster than you think."

"I was only exploring a bit" Anna answered spontaneously. "And my coat is warmer than it looks."

The man looked at her in surprise.

"Exploring? Where do you come from?"

"The castle. I just arrived, actually. Has it been like that for a long time?"

"You mean… you come from the castle or you just arrived at the castle?"

"I just arrived at the castle. Before that I was in the… is this Arendelle?"

The man looked at her with incredulous eyes.

"You are confused" he said eventually. "Climb up, I'll take you to the castle."

Anna looked around.

"That's very kind of you, but I would have loved to explore a bit more…"

There was a distant howl. Anna shivered. This reminded her of her encounter with the wolves on Kristoff's sled.

"But the castle is fine. Let's go back to the castle!"

The driver shifted on his seat to leave her a place at his side. The sled ponderously moved on as the four reindeers picked up their pace.

A roar echoed in the distance. That one was not a wolf howl. Anna searched her memory. It had almost sounded like…

"What was that?" she asked to the driver.

The man looked at her again.

"You really do know nothing of this country, do you?"

"It is Arendelle, right?"

"Yes it is. Or maybe I should say was." He shrugged. "How exactly did you arrive there?"

"Well it's… complicated. I was in a… box. We arrived in the middle of the castle, and I went exploring… Oh no, where are Elsa and the Doctor now?"

Another wolfish howl echoed in the distance. This one was cut short by a yelp of pain, followed by another strange roar.

"The Ice Beasts are hunting today" the driver said, urging his reindeer forward. The sled was now slowly progressing along the bridge to the castle. There were big gaps in it that caused no trouble to someone on foot, but forced a carriage to zigzag to avoid them. "I hope no one will be out tonight."

"Excuse me?"

Anna turned to meet the gaze of the passengers. The one who had talked was a dark-haired woman, older than her by a few years. Her two companions were a short, stocky man, completely wrapped up in his winter garments, and a woman with a very heavy veil covering her face.

"Oh, hello" Anna said genially. "Is it comfortable in the back?"

"Yes, thank you" the woman answered. "I'm sorry to be intruding but… did you say you arrived here in a box with a man called the Doctor?"

* * *

Elsa slowly walked up to the bed. Her eyes were getting accustomed to the light of the candle, and she was slowly making out the face of the old woman. There was something undoubtedly familiar about it.

"Yes, I'm Elsa. Who are…"

The face of the old woman lit up with a smile.

"Elsa! You came back!"

Elsa gasped. Faces can change with time, gain wrinkles and spots, the hair can turn white, the eyes can stop seeing – one of the woman's eyes, Elsa saw, was a pearly blue-white. But the smile does not. The one that was now spreading over the woman's face, making her remaining eye sparkle, was all too familiar to her. This happy, hopeful smile, as if the person smiling firmly believed that everything was going to be all right and that anything bad was only a simple misunderstanding that would soon be cleared up…

"You remained young!" the woman said, looking intently at Elsa's face. Her smile faded a little. "Are you still angry with me?"

"What? No, I'm not angry with you… Who are…" her voice choked as she could not force the question out of her mouth. At least she could still pretend she did not know the answer.

For the first time since she had met him, the Doctor remained completely silent, looking gravely at the scene before him. Elsa realised she would have loved for him to interrupt, even if it was to be rude to everyone.

The old woman slowly reached out and laid a wrinkled, feeble hand on Elsa's face.

"You are still as young as when I last saw you… when you let me in your ice palace… I'm sorry, Elsa!"

Elsa shivered. She was hesitating between pulling her head back to escape the invasive hand, or take it in hers instead. She managed to talk.

"Sorry for what?"

"I never realised I was angering you so much… I'm sorry, you should only have told me… That poor Kristoff… and all those people…"

Elsa tried to talk, but her throat closed. She felt the air becoming colder around her. It was only a matter of seconds before ice would appear. She reached up and clasped her hand around the woman's.

"I'm sorry Elsa… all of this is my fault… Whatever Hans said, it's my fault… I never knew… I made you so angry."

Elsa looked in the eyes of the woman and could not help notice that her disabled eye looked a lot like glass... or ice. She could not help noticing as well that eyes don't change much with time either.

"I was never angry with you…" she managed to whisper.

"Then why did you say all of those things, in your ice palace? Why did try to hurt me… That poor Kristoff, the ice harvester… without him… Why did you never stop the winter?"

Elsa swallowed. Ice was now spreading under her feet, she heard it. Only the hand she had wrapped around the old woman's remained warm. _This is not possible. This is a nightmare. I will wake up._

"I never did this" she whispered. "I would never do this. I will never do this. I stopped the winter."

The old woman's face lit up with one of her bright smiles.

"Did you stop it now? Is it safe to go outside again? You are not angry with me any more? With Arendelle?"

There was loud knocking on the door.

"Grandmother?" came a muffled voice behind it. "Are you all right?"

"Yes I am!" the old woman shouted with surprising force. She turned to Elsa. "Have you met little Iduna? She will be happy that the winter stopped!"

"Iduna? But that was the name of my…"

The handle was turning.

"Grandmother!" came the voice. "Why is your door locked?"

"It's not locked. What is she talking about?" muttered the old woman.

The Doctor stepped up.

"I'm sorry, that was me. Is there another exit from your room?"

The woman looked at him, blinking.

"Wait, what? I'm sorry, I did not… Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor. Is there another way to exit this room?"

"No… why would you want to leave?" The old woman slipped out of her bed and wrapped herself in a heavy fur robe. "Little Iduna will be happy to meet Elsa. Now that the winter is stopped we can all be…"

"I'm sorry." Elsa cleared her throat. She was now standing in the middle of a pool of ice, and not quite sure that some snowflakes were not falling in the room. "I… did not stop the winter. It's still freezing outside."

"Oh." The old woman looked disappointed for a second, then looked up cheerfully again. "But you came back to us! We can be together again! You have to meet…"

"I'm sorry to insist" the Doctor interrupted, "but are you sure there is no other way to leave your room than this door?"

"No there is not" said the woman, turning to him. "But you don't need to leave! Everything will be fine…"

The lock clicked. The Doctor turned, pointing his sonic screwdriver, but it was too late. The door opened.

A young woman entered the room. Like everyone they had encountered so far, she wore heavy furs, although hers were in much better shape than the guards' had been. She stopped when she saw the Doctor and Elsa and drew a sword.

"Step away from my grandmother, both of you!" she ordered coldly.

"No, it's okay, Iduna, they were not bothering me! This is your great…"

"You know you should not get out of bed, Grandmother, you are too weak! And keep away from these people, you don't know if…"

Her eyes went wide as she looked at Elsa.

"It's you" she hissed, pointing her sword at her and stepping forward. She was a few years older than her, Elsa realised. And her face was also familiar, although this time she was sure she had never seen it before, young or old.

"No, stop" the old woman said, trying to totter between them. "She's not angry with us any more. She… she said that… she…"

She staggered, her breath quick. Elsa and the young woman both reached out to catch her. She collapsed in their arms.

"There", the old woman muttered, looking from one to another. "We are all together again. You'll have to meet Kristoff" she told Elsa. "He'll be happy to meet… his…"

"She needs to go back to her bed" the young woman said, glaring at Elsa. "She's very weak. She should not be disturbed."

Both women carried the frail body to the bed. The old woman was trying to mutter some words as they put her back under the heavy blankets, but she soon fell asleep.

"We will let her rest now" the young woman ordered. "I hope she'll have forgotten this when she wakes up."

They slowly exited the room, with the woman carefully closing the door behind her. She turned to them and drew her sword again, pointing it at Elsa and the Doctor.

"You are my prisoners. You will accompany me and you will be…"

"I'm sorry", the Doctor cut in, "but we are not going to be your prisoners."

"What?" the young woman said, taken aback. "Look, I'm the one with the sword here, and you don't and _stop doing that now!_ "

She advanced threateningly on Elsa, pointing at the patch of ice that was surrounding her feet.

"I don't know what you told my grandmother" she hissed, "but I won't be fooled. If you really are… her… then no matter what Grandmother thinks, you are a stranger to me, and I won't hesitate to do what must be done if it can save our kingdom!"

"That's enough, now" the Doctor said, stepping up.

He laid his hand on the wrist of the young woman. She recoiled, trying to lunge at him with her sword, but he somehow managed to step around her while keeping his hand around her wrist. There was a complicated twist of his hand, then suddenly he was the one holding the sword.

The young woman drew herself up.

"Very well" she said with dignity. "If it must end like this, so be it. I won't beg."

The sword clattered loudly on the floor as the Doctor threw it away.

"Now listen to me" the grey-haired man said intently. "Whatever you may think about us, you are wrong. For one thing" he pointed at Elsa "she is not responsible for the winter you are having. Someone else is. Probably with the same powers as her. But, right now, this is not her."

The young woman called Iduna looked at him, then at Elsa, then back at him, puzzled.

"But… Grandmother said… she thought..."

"That she was your great-aunt?" the Doctor asked brusquely. Elsa could not suppress a gasp at hearing the words she had been desperately trying not to think. "She is not. Well, yes, she probably is, but not yet. And in any case, she's not the one that you are thinking about. So forget it, and consider that she is another woman with platinum hair and a green dress. And ice powers that she can't seem to control properly at the moment" he added, looking reproachfully at the expanding patch of ice under Elsa's feet. "Now", he said, turning back to Iduna, "could you tell us what has been going here in the last fifty years?"

The young woman looked at him, puzzled.

"You mean you don't know?"

"I told you already, we just arrived here."

Iduna hesitated, looking from the Doctor to Elsa.

"Who are you? Why did you come here?"

"I told you. I'm the Doctor. And I may be able to help you."

"You mean you could… stop the winter?"

"It depends. That's why I need you to explain everything to me."

Iduna finally reached a decision.

"I'll lead you to my father" she said. "But if you lied to me, if you harmed my grandmother…"

"Yes, yes, I know, you will probably do something horrible to us. Now please lead on."

The young woman looked at them intently for a while before turning around and walking along the corridor. Elsa and the Doctor followed her slowly.

"Doctor!" Elsa hissed after a few meters.

The Doctor glanced at her. She was doing her best to walk calmly, but was now unable to stop the occasional patch of ice to appear under her feet. She was surprised to see him move closer to her, his expression softening.

"This old woman… she really was…" Elsa whispered.

"Your sister? Of course, did you not recognise her?"

"But… she looked so… old…"

"Oh, she was, was she? So that's why she had white hair. She's better looking like that, by the way. Remind me to tell her that if I need to make her a compliment for some reason."

Elsa shivered and desperately tried to prevent the rush of cold air she felt around her, hoping that the young woman in front of them would not notice.

"Is she… isn't she in the TARDIS?"

The Doctor sighed loudly.

"Of course she is. Assuming she managed to remain there. People have an incredible tendency of not wanting to stay safely in the TARDIS when they can go endanger themselves somewhere else." He sighed again and looked at Elsa. "We are in the future. So this was the future version of your sister. Is that so hard to comprehend? I thought you were the clever one, even though that does not mean much."

"But she said I… was angry with her… I never would…"

"Oh, you probably will" the Doctor said dismissively. "Excuse me, Idina?" he said, quickening his pace to be on level with the woman leading the way.

"It's Iduna, Sir!"

"Whatever. How long has this winter been going on, exactly?"

"You really don't know?"

"Why do you think I ask?" the Doctor said brusquely, glancing back at Elsa who was hurrying to keep up.

"But everyone knows it! I was not born, and neither was my father, but I know it… It was the curse brought by my… great-aunt on the country… The day she fled the castle, the day my grandmother met… her husband" she spat the word with distaste. "It was the day the Snow Queen was crowned."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** I apologise for making the castle of Arendelle look like an endless maze of branching corridors, but the Doctor and his companions need to be chased by guards through corridors at least once an episode. And it's a huge castle anyway.

The Doctor (in his twelfth incarnation at least) has shown to be quite competent with swords (and spoons), so I considered he would be able to disarm Iduna without too much trouble. On the other hand, I don't remember the Doctor ever skating, and, even if he did, Twelve may have forgotten it.


	3. Terror of the Snow Queen

The sled glided slowly over the dilapidated bridge as the driver manoeuvred to enter the courtyard.

"Yes, the Doctor" Anna explained happily to the young woman. "My sister and I met him a few times when we were younger, with his magic blue box. Now he does not look the same but he says he's still him…"

"How does he look like now?" the woman with the heavy veil asked from the back of the sled.

"He looks… older. And he does not always say nice things. Do you know him?"

Whatever the woman was about to answer was cut by another roar that echoed in the distance. This one sounded much closer. The driver glanced around him as the sled passed the ruined gate to the courtyard and muttered something under his breath.

"What was that? What are those Ice Beasts?"

"Pray you don't know, young lady" the driver said, driving the sled under an archway that was still standing.

"Nothing that can't be dispatched with a sufficient use of force!" shouted the short man who had so far remained silent in his seat in the back of the sled. "Don't worry, boy" he said to Anna, "we can take care of it."

"Silence, Strax" the woman with the veil intimated. "I'm Madame Vastra" she said, turning back to Anna, "and this is my… maid, Jenny. This is Strax" she said, designating the short man. "He has trouble telling male from female apart. We all came from London for an audience with the King."

"Nice to meet you" Anna said politely. "I'm Anna. I'm a girl, by the way" she added, looking at Strax.

Madame Vastra cocked her head, her face almost invisible behind the heavy veil.

"Anna? Nice to meet you too. Where do you come from?"

"I'm from… Arendelle. But it was summer when we left", Anna said, looking hesitantly around her.

"Here we are" the driver said, moving out of his seat. The sled had stopped under the archway, and a couple of people in heavy clothing were approaching from a door in the wall. They helped the passengers and Anna to climb down, giving curious looks to the princess, and began unloading the sled.

"Do you know where the Doctor is right now?" Madame Vastra asked while Jenny and Strax gathered their luggages.

"I think he's still inside the castle" Anna answered, looking curiously at the strange figure of Strax. The man reminded her of the Trolls from Kristoff's family.

Another roar echoed, this time much closer. Others answered it from the mountains. Anna shivered.

Madame Vastra suddenly lifted her veil. Anna gasped in surprise as she discovered a green, scaly face, with surprisingly human eyes sparkling with intelligence. They bore on her with uncomfortable penetration.

"Would you by any chance be Queen Anna of Arendelle?" she asked abruptly. "Maybe in your first years of reign?"

"Wait, what? No, I'm Princess Anna. The queen is my…"

Another roar erupted, shaking the walls. The people from the castle looked around them with fear. Some of them drew swords. Anna, still bewildered, saw Jenny exchange a glance with Vastra and crouch to one of their bags, as Vastra reached inside her dress and pulled out a small metallic device.

Something landed on all fours in the courtyard. It looked a bit like a bear, if bears were five meters high and made of snow with ice spikes protruding from their body. The thing looked left and right, then focused on the small group near the sled. The men drew their swords, while Jenny pulled a strange-looking sabre from her pack. The ice creature grunted, its empty eye sockets narrowing in their direction. Then it reared and roared again.

As the thing began charging them, Anna finally remembered of what this roar had been reminding her. This one was nothing but inarticulate sounds, but she had heard one very much like that from very close one year ago. It had been yelling at her and Kristoff not to come back.

* * *

The room was large, and comparatively well lit and heated from the fires burning in two chimneys and a brazier in the middle. Elsa recognised it instantly: this was the heart of the castle, the former throne room which was in her time mainly used when receiving prestigious guests. Most of its original decoration had been preserved, although there were more weapon racks than she remembered, and the windows had been boarded shut like everywhere else in the castle. The wall where the portraits of the last rulers of Arendelle were traditionally hung was still adorned with the official paintings.

Elsa gazed at them automatically as Iduna walked up to a man who had been hunched over a table covered with papers near the centre of the room. She always did this when she entered this room: she liked meeting the gazes of her ancestors, usually stopping on the comforting eyes of her parents. Even now, in this nightmarish parody of the castle she knew, their serene gazes, forever preserved in the painting, soothed her troubled mind. Then she tensed again as she saw the next paintings. The spot where she was accustomed to see her own portrait, which she rarely looked at, and only because she had insisted for Anna to also appear there, was conspicuously empty. There was another portrait next to it now. It represented her sister, clad in regal clothes, looking a few years older, and a lot more serious than Elsa had ever seen her. At her side…

"Hello! You must be the King" the Doctor said loudly, making Elsa jump and pulling her out of her horrified recognition. "I'm the Doctor. This is… someone who travels with me." The Doctor bowed slightly in front of the man who had been hunched over the table. He looked back slightly incredulously at the Time Lord while Iduna glared defiantly.

Elsa glanced at the man. He reminded her of her father, with his thin, distinguished features. But there was someone else of whom he reminded her… His expression, however, was despondent. On that account, it also reminded her of how her father sometimes looked when he had failed to comfort her.

"Hello… Doctor" he said wearily. "I'm indeed King Kristoff of Arendelle… or what is left of it." He glanced nervously at Elsa, who looked down to avoid his gaze and shuffled back into the shadows. "I understand you were chased by some of our guards. They thought they recognised your… companion."

"She's not my… oh, I guess she is now. Well, I understand she looks like someone rather famous around here." The Doctor glanced around the room, then back at the king. "Your aunt, apparently. What I wanted was to know why."

"You mean you really don't know?"

"That's why I'm asking. We've been… away for some time. Oh" the Doctor added, as if an afterthought, "I may be able to help if you tell me."

"Help? How?"

"I have no idea. I hope I'll find something clever while you explain everything to me."

"How can I trust you?"

The Doctor hesitated for a second.

"You're the son of the one with the freckles, right?" he asked, vaguely gesturing toward the painting.

"Queen Anna is my mother, yes" the king answered haughtily.

"Did she ever told you about a man in a blue box? With… a bow tie" the Doctor added reluctantly, making no attempt to hide the disgust in his voice. "Building snowmen with her."

The king squinted, looking from the surprised Iduna to the Doctor.

"She did tell me this story a few times" he slowly said after some seconds. "How could you know…"

"I'm this man. Or rather, I'm his successor. That will spare me having to explain you about time travel and regenerations. I've visited your mother and her sister a few times when they were younger."

"These snowmen were a happy memory from my mother's childhood" the king said dreamily, his eyes distant. "I always thought they were something she had made up. I understand she had a rather… active imagination in her younger days."

"I assure you I'm very real. So, can you explain to me now what happened in the last half century?"

The king shrugged.

"Well, it's not as if I had much to do… and for once it seems we are getting visitors today." He looked again nervously at Elsa, who was now busily looking at the room around her without actually seeing any of it.

"I understand something went wrong when… your aunt… was crowned."

"The Snow Queen." The king spat the words. "Yes. She got into an argument with my mother, and revealed hitherto unknown powers over ice. She invoked a magical winter onto the whole kingdom and fled into the mountain." He spoke steadily in a low, weary voice, his eyes distant, like someone who has heard this story many times before, and repeated it just as often.

"My mother went after her. She went all the way into the mountain by herself, only with the help of a lone ice harvester named Kristoff." The king's voice wavered a bit as his eyes wandered over the portrait of Anna on the wall. Elsa had retreated into the darker corner of the room, doing her best to be unnoticed while listening to every of his words, and desperately trying to contain the ice that was forming around her. She could feel the gaze of Iduna occasionally honing on her.

"The Snow Queen rejected my mother" the king resumed bitterly. "She struck her with her powers. She would probably have killed her, without the sacrifice of the ice harvester." The king paused. "I was named in his memory."

The Doctor turned briefly around and met Elsa's gaze, just as she was about to jump from the shadows to shout that this was not possible. The queen wondered if she had not seen the slightest hint of compassion in the austere eyes. She contained herself, while the wall behind her crackled with frost.

"A search party led by… her fiancé… found my mother and brought her back to the castle. She was sick from the Snow Queen's powers. Half of her hair turned white, and one of her eyes turned into ice, and remained that way forever."

Elsa tried to refrain a gasp. She was glad that Iduna's attention was now entirely focused on the Doctor and the king, as ice was now creeping from her in every direction. She glanced at Anna's portrait again. Her sister was indeed portrayed with many strands of white hair, one of them covering her eye, the same one Elsa had noticed as being pearly blue.

"What happened then?" the Doctor asked sternly, pacing back and forth and stopping in a position that happened to be right between the king and his daughter and the corner where Elsa was desperately trying to disappear.

The king sat slowly. "Nothing, Doctor. Nothing happened. The winter went on. It has been going on for fifty years now." He slumped in his chair. "My mother took over the crown and married…" he spat the words "my father, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles." The Doctor heard Iduna inhale sharply and grind her teeth. "She tried to return to the mountain many times, but the Snow Queen never let her, or anyone, reach her. Then she unleashed the Ice Beasts…"

"Ice Beasts? Beasts made of ice? She also could do that?" the Doctor asked, briefly casting a curious glance at Elsa, who was now surrounded with frost and trying to retreat to the door.

"Yes." The king sighed. "People began leaving the country. Eventually… even my father left." The king did not try to hide the contempt in his voice. "My mother thought he was her true love, but apparently he mainly wanted a throne to sit on." The king clenched his fist. "And a kingdom buried in ice, whose few remaining inhabitants were fighting for their daily lives, was not the throne he wanted."

Iduna put her arms around her father. The king lovingly hugged her back.

"And there we are now, Doctor. A few hundredth of people, most of them huddled in the royal castle, barely surviving thanks to our exports of ice. That's right" he added, smiling humourlessly, "Arendelle is now a prime producer of ice in any season. That's how we managed to survive so far."

"And… the Snow Queen has remained in the mountains every since? No one has seen her again?"

"No. No one who came back to talk about it anyway. Only her Ice Beasts could be seen, although they usually don't come close to the castle."

"And the winter never stopped and never spread from your country?"

"Well… not until recently, anyway." The king shifted uncomfortably. "Apparently, in the last few years, the countries around us began experiencing strongest winters. Weselton, the Southern Isles… even the British Isles have apparently been…"

"Father! Look!" Iduna shouted suddenly.

She was pointing at Elsa, and the ice that was now covering part of the floor and the walls around her. The queen desperately backed to the door, her hands raised, blubbering apologies and denials.

"Who _are_ you?" the king shouted, standing up, while Iduna was picking up a sword from one of the racks.

"OK, OK, calm down everyone" the Doctor shouted, backing up to Elsa. "Platinum here has ice powers, but she is not… whatever she's doing, she's not doing it on purpose. And she does not want to harm anyone, I've got proof of that."

"She's Elsa."

Elsa gasped at the sound of the familiar, nasal voice, as everyone turned their heads to the source of the interruption.

Olaf was slowly entering the room. Elsa's first thought was that he lacked his flurry and was in risk of melting, before remembering that the temperature was probably close to freezing, even in this well heated room. Then she noticed that the little snowman was shuffling forward very slowly, keeping his head down, unlike the bouncing gait she was used to see in him. As he raised his head, she realised that the carrot that had been his nose was missing.

"What is that?" the Doctor hissed incredulously.

"He's Olaf… I created him" she whispered back.

"Hello, Elsa" Olaf said in a very flat voice. "Nice of you to visit us" he added, with a hint of the cheerfulness Elsa had come to associate with him.

There was a metallic noise behind them. The king and his daughter were now brandishing swords. The Doctor sighed loudly.

"Oh, please" he said with exasperation. "Could you stop waving your metal sticks around any time there is something you don't understand? What does this… ice-cream brain know about who is whom anyway?"

"Don't insult Olaf!" Iduna shouted indignantly. "He's been a faithful companion to my grandmother for a long time!"

"Actually, Doctor, he always seemed to know where Anna and I are" Elsa whispered timidly. "It's some kind of… intuition."

"Oh, he does, does he?" the Doctor said, crouching to be on the little snowman's level. "Hello, ice-cream brain. I'm the Doctor."

"Hello, Thedoctor" Olaf articulated slowly, his voice slurred.

"So tell me, mister snowman" the Doctor went on, oblivious to King Kristoff and Iduna slowly closing on them, their swords raised, "if you can always tell where Elsa is… where is she now?"

"She's there" Olaf answered, slowly pointing to the green-clad girl, who was now surrounded by ice. The little snowman frowned. "And… in the mountain. Like she has always been ever since she created me."

"A-ha!"

The Doctor slowly stood up, and beamed smugly at the king and his daughter, ignoring the guards who had entered the room from the other side, swords raised.

"Did you heard what your snowy friend said?"

"He's… confused" Iduna said hesitantly. "Olaf, where is the Snow Queen? Is she this lady?"

"Yes, she is. But she is also in the mountains. Wait… I think she's also coming."

"What?"

Even the Doctor looked surprised. Olaf pointed to a door.

"And Anna is that way. And… in her room" he added in a puzzled voice. "I'm going to lie down" he said, rubbing his forehead.

"No, actually, there is a very logical explanation…" the Doctor began.

The door Olaf had pointed burst open, and a group of people rushed into the room. Some of them were wounded.

"Your Majesty!" one of the men panted. "The Ice Beasts are attacking! Some of them jumped into the courtyard!"

"Prepare everyone for combat!" a voice yelled from behind them. "Distribute grenades to any person with enough force for throwing them successfully! Set up traps to collapse walls on the intruders! Be ready for…"

"Silence, Strax" a cold, commanding voice interrupted. "Stop waving your weapon around and tend to the wounded."

The owner of the voice, a tall woman with a green skin and lizard-like features, walked through the crowd up to the king.

"Good morning, your Majesty. I'm Madame Vastra from London, this is my wife Jenny, and this is Strax. I'm requesting an audience. Hello Doctor", she added, with a nod to the grey-haired man.

"Hello" the Doctor answered. "What brought you there?"

"The weather has been getting colder in the British Isles in the last years. We traced the source of this cold to this kingdom. There is apparently a legend of a past queen with cryokinetic powers and…"

"It's not a legend" the Doctor said curtly.

Vastra smiled.

"So, you are already on the case?"

"It seems I am now."

"Excuse me?"

King Kristoff had stepped between them, looking more than a little bewildered. He composed himself and turned to Vastra.

"I apologise for not being able to grant you this audience right now, Madam, but my kingdom is under attack. I do thank you for your help, as my men just told me that you and your… companions were instrumental in…"

A roar echoed in the distance, muffled by the walls and the boarded windows.

"I must prepare for combat. This has never happened before. I fear the worst." He paused a second. "Are you here on behalf of the Queen Victoria?"

"No. We have no ties to the British crown. Besides, I'm a Silurian."

Kristoff smiled humourlessly.

"And here I thought we had attracted the attention of yet another power eager to 'help' us."

Another roar, shook the walls of the castle, quickly followed by others.

Elsa had been looking at the scene, desperately trying to make sense of it and to avoid turning the room into an ice cave. The small part of her brain that still tried to think like the Queen of Arendelle briefly wondered if they had been talking about the same Queen Victoria who had been crowned a few years before her. Then light returned into her world as she noticed a lithe, magenta clad figure hesitantly approaching the group.

"Anna!"

Elsa rushed to her sister and grabbed her into a tight embrace. Anna was only too happy to return the hug, although slightly surprised by the strength with which her sister was clutching to her.

"Anna! My little Anna! Are you all right?"

"I'm all right! I met these people, they know the Doctor, then an Ice B… some kind of monster attacked us, and the short man shot light at it from a strange crossbow, and…"

"I love you my little Anna! I'll always love you! You know that, right?" Elsa blubbered, trying to fight back her tears.

"Of course Elsa, I love you too!" Anna answered, slightly puzzled. She realised her sister was shaking and felt a draft of cold air around her. She hugged Elsa tighter. "What happened? Is this really Arendelle? Not another place that looks incredibly like it?"

"It seems so" Elsa whispered. "We are in the future."

"But… that can't be the future… everything is still frozen…" Anna stopped as she realised the air around her was becoming colder. "Does the Doctor know what is happening?" she asked. "Does that sort of thing happen when we travel in time?"

"I don't know Anna." Elsa breathed deeply, slowly breaking the tight embrace. "I can't even thaw the winter outside. I tried."

"You should go back to the TARDIS."

The Doctor was suddenly standing in front of the sisters. They could hear the king shouting orders and Strax and Vastra arguing behind them, while roars were now echoing continuously behind the walls. Elsa could not help noticing that the grey-haired man was standing so as to block most of the room from Anna's view.

"Go to the TARDIS, Doctor?" Anna said, puzzled. "But…"

"I could help, Doctor" Elsa said, composing herself while still keeping an arm wrapped around her sister's shoulders. "But you should go back to the TARDIS, Anna."

"Wait, what? But… I want to help, too!"

"Help. How do you want to help in a fight against an invasion of ice monsters?" the Doctor asked sharply.

"But that's… that's what you are going to do, aren't you?"

"Of course, but I'm more clever. And I'm used to do that."

"But you had to begin, one day!" Anna said petulantly. "And I don't want to hide when people are in danger! Especially if they are from Arendelle!"

"You do realise" the Doctor enunciated slowly, "that there is danger out there? That you may end up killed?"

Elsa nodded gravely. The Doctor went on.

"You do know that this would probably not be one of those comfortable deaths where it looks as if you are sleeping, but one where you get cut and all your body fluids start leaking painfully?"

Anna shuddered. Elsa looked at the Doctor.

"I know that" she said calmly.

"And you still want to stay and help?"

"Yes."

"Me too" Anna said. "That's what sisters do" she added as Elsa was opening her mouth to protest.

"Good." The Doctor smiled unexpectedly. He rubbed his hands together. "Then let's get to work."

"Wait" Anna asked. "You do not want us to go and hide in the TARDIS any more?"

"Of course I do" the Doctor said abruptly. "Because I'm responsible if something bad happens to you. But since you know what the risks are, there's no point in arguing if you do want to help."

Vastra had appeared at the Doctor's side.

"It will be hard to convince these people to flee the fight, Doctor" she said. "They have been defending this castle against the winter for so long…"

"What is it with this place that everyone is ready to die defending it?" the Doctor asked abruptly. "Oh never mind, just probably humans being humans. Here" he pointed at Anna, "you have already met Freckles. She wants to help, so take her with you and be prepared."

There was the briefest glance exchanged between the grey-haired man and the green-scaled woman.

"Of course, Doctor" she acquiesced. "Come, Anna, we need to go defend the castle."

"Wait, what? But, Doctor, I want to stay with…"

"Off you go!" the Doctor interrupted, grabbing Anna by the shoulders and pushing her toward the lizard woman. "Chop-chop, go find something clever to delay those Ice Beasts. I need to think of something."

Jenny took the cue and pulled Anna away. Vastra and Strax followed them in the corridor along the hurrying guards.

"Why did you send her away?" Elsa blurted angrily. "Could not we all stay together?"

The Doctor leaned toward her.

"Your sister has a portrait of herself on the wall here. I don't have the time to explain the reason why three times over to all the pudding-brains in this room, your sister included. They would probably go all human, and I don't have time for that."

"Could I have not gone with her?"

"You are the one with the ice powers, I need you around to test some theories."

"Is she going to be all right?" Elsa asked anxiously. "Who are these people?"

"People I trust" the Doctor said bluntly. "Don't worry, they will run her around the castle away from the excitement, maybe shoot an Ice Beast or two."

"Excuse me, Doctor?"

Elsa jumped. The king was standing behind them. She noticed him casting a curious glance at the disappearing figure of her sister.

"You said you may be able to help… If your offer still stands, now is the time to make good on it."

"I am." The Doctor paused for a second, looking in the distance. "Has anyone already tried to speak with those Ice Beasts of yours?"

"What?" The king looked bewildered. "They're _beasts_! They are just mindless forces of destruction, unleashed by the fury of the Snow Queen!" he added, casting a nervous glance at Elsa, who had been craning her neck fruitlessly trying to catch a last glimpse of Anna.

"What is the difference with an average human?" the Doctor deadpanned. He smacked his forehead. "No, don't tell me, humans are not unleashed by the fury of the Snow Queen."

The king shrugged and whirled around to shout orders to a group of guards passing them by.

The Doctor stepped closer to Elsa. "Tell me, Platinum, did your fury often unleash beasts, apart from ice-cream brain over there?"

"I'm not the Snow Queen" Elsa said in a steely voice, trying to keep the comforting image of her young sister present in her mind. "I did create Marshmallow" she said in a lower voice. "But he's not mindless… Just a bit quick to anger… Oh, and I created little snowmen when I had a cold, but they were good natured…"

"Are you trying to drown the world in ice-cream brains?" the Doctor scolded. "Do they all know where you are as well?" he asked in almost the same tone.

"I… don't know" Elsa said hesitantly. "Olaf lives with us in the castle, so we noticed it eventually, but I don't know for the others…" She gasped. "Do you think the Ice Beasts are attacking because I'm here?"

"That's a possibility."

"But Doctor… this would mean that…" Elsa made a gesture encompassing the gloomy room, the guards running in all directions and the king frantically shouting orders as distant thumps kept resonating through the walls "all of this is… real?"

"Of course it is! Did you think it was not just because it's in your future? The future has a right to exist too!"

"But… that's not possible!"

"Oh?" The Doctor crossed his arms. "Then if the future is not possible…"

"No, I mean… This can't be my future! Things did not happen as they say it did! I thawed the kingdom! I thawed it! And Anna was saved! And Kristoff did not die! He and Anna are… together now!"

"Then it will happen later in your timeline…"

"No! It can't! Anna could never marry Hans now that she knows who she is! And… I did freeze the kingdom on the day of my coronation, as they said I did! But it did not turn out like that!"

The Doctor looked suddenly very serious. His brow furrowed, which was an impressive sight in a man with such eyebrows.

"Oh. So you are trying to tell me, in your limited human ways, that we are facing a retroactive time alteration… A paradox…" He looked away for a few seconds. "Was that why you were so upset?" he mumbled, as if talking to himself. "You knew they were about to be rewritten... Oh, you sentimental old girl." He looked up at Elsa. "We'll have to sort this out later" he said. "Right now, we are in a castle full of people attacked by monsters."

"But… if this is not the right future… can't we fix it? So that they remember correctly me thawing the country and everything else… Would not that… solve this?"

The Doctor fixed his piercing gaze on her.

"Do you think we should leave these people here and go back to the TARDIS, to try finding why time was rewritten?" he asked calmly, as if genuinely not knowing the answer.

"Of course not" Elsa answered without thinking. "I mean… does… if we prevent this from happening…" She blinked as the memory of her old thought experiments resurfaced, when she was locked in her room dreaming of going back in time to prevent her from harming Anna. "Will this still be happening… Somewhere? Some… when?"

"Yes. Now."

"Who are you two exactly?"

Elsa and the Doctor jumped. Iduna was standing near them, leaning against the wall. The confusion around them had ensured that their conversation has remained relatively unnoticed by everybody else, but it had also ensured that the approach of the young woman had remained equally unnoticed by themselves.

"You were eavesdropping" the Doctor stated. "How much did you heard?"

Iduna stepped toward them.

"What are you hiding?"

"Nothing. I just want to know what you heard so that I won't have to tell you twice."

"You do look like the few old portraits of the Snow Queen…" she mused, looking at Elsa. "Yet you are saying that you can't have become her…"

"We are time travellers. We come from your past. And she's your great-aunt from fifty years ago." The Doctor turned to Elsa, smiling. "Telling the truth is fun!"

Iduna pondered for a few seconds.

"Who was the other woman you sent away with the strange people from London?"

"OK, that's enough truth for today" the Doctor said sternly. "You are a clever girl. Figure it out."

Iduna gently shook her head.

"She can't be… she can't be Grandmother. They never were so close, except when they were little girls. Grandmother told me about it many times."

Elsa swallowed with difficulty.

"We became close again… after I thawed the kingdom" she muttered. "It happened. I remember it." She evoked Anna's radiant smile in her mind and managed to steady her voice enough to speak up. "I'm sorry if it… did not happen for you."

"We will worry about that later" the Doctor said in a definite tone. "Now, what would you say about stopping these ice monsters?" he said as a cacophony of roars was heard through the thick walls.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Olaf being able to know where the sisters are is a fan speculation I picked up somewhere. It does makes some sense, and it was useful for my story, so I used it.


	4. Beauty and Ice Beasts

"Wait!" Anna shouted as Jenny gently but firmly pushed her out of the room. "Why do I have to leave Elsa?"

"We need you to… to guide us inside the castle" Vastra answered with only a second of hesitation. "To a… vantage point. Yes, somewhere where we can overlook the whole castle."

"There is the central tower, if it's still accessible but… Why could not Elsa come with us?"

"Don't worry" Vastra said reassuringly. "Your consort will be safe as long as she remains with the Doctor."

"But if she… wait, what? Elsa is my _sister_!"

Out of the corner of her eyes, Anna saw Jenny make an expressive face at Vastra.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Vastra looked genuinely apologetic. "Human faces still look the same to me sometimes… So Elsa is the former Queen of Arendelle? The one who became the Snow Queen?"

"No, she's still queen… Wait, the Snow Queen? She did not become the Snow Queen!"

"Maybe not in your time, not yet. But now most texts mention the Snow Queen cursing the country on the day of her coronation…"

Anna stopped in her tracks, escaping Jenny's gentle grip, and faced Vastra.

"She thawed it! And Arendelle has been thawed ever since! And she's not the Snow Queen! And she never wanted to curse anybody!"

Vastra smiled unexpectedly. The sight was strange in the reptilian face, but the result was friendly nonetheless.

"You do love her a lot, don't you?"

"Yes, I do" Anna said, more calmly. "She's my only family. We only have each other. I mean", she added thoughtfully, "now I have Kristoff and there is Olaf and… well, she has the kingdom to run, but…"

"I know what you mean" Vastra said softly.

"Do you have a sister, too?"

"I had many. They left a hole nothing could fill. Almost nothing" Vastra added, exchanging a tender smile with Jenny. "But I don't wish that pain on anyone."

Anna opened her mouth to ask what had happened, but Vastra went on almost immediately.

"We must be quick" she said briskly. "Could you please tell us how to reach this tower?"

Anna looked around her, finding her bearings. Parts of the castle had been walled up or had collapsed, but she had spent enough years exploring it to know every possible short-cut.

"This way" she said eventually. Vastra smiled.

"Thank you" she said. "Let's go" she added, gently pushing Anna along.

"Are you sure Elsa will be all right?" Anna asked as they all began walking rapidly in the direction she had given.

"Don't worry. She'll be safe as long as she remains with the Doctor. Besides, if she has ice powers, she should be all right here."

They had to stop when the corridor they had been following turned out to be blocked by a heap of rubble and ice where it had collapsed. It took Anna only a second to form another path in her head.

"This way" she said, pointing to a door in the wall. "But she was so… upset" she went on. "I wanted to ask her what happened while she was with him."

Jenny smiled at her.

"That may simply have been the Doctor."

"Jenny!" Vastra hissed.

"I meant, Madam, he can upset people sometimes, without wanting to."

Anna looked curiously from one to another as they turned back from a barred stairway and walked down a branching corridor.

"Are you her maid or her… wife?" she eventually asked.

"Wife" both women answered in unison.

"Oh." Anna looked perplexed. "I did not know you could do that in the British Empire. Maybe that is one of those future things."

Vastra and Jenny exchanged a glance.

"You simply have to want it" Vastra said eventually. "And not minding what is allowed or not."

"Oh, I know how that" Anna said cheerfully. "But for me it's easier, because the man I... " She blushed. "I wonder where he is now" she said with sudden concern.

Jenny smiled at Anna.

"Don't worry. If he remained in your time, he will probably never know that you left."

"Really? That's great, I would not want for him to worry. Anyway..." Anna went on, "nobody really cares that he is a commoner even though I'm a princess, apart from some old advisers."

"Make sure your sister knows this as well." Vastra went on. "If there is someone she loves, but whom old traditions says she should not marry…"

"There!" Anna exclaimed triumphantly, pointing at an ascending staircase. "This will lead us to one of the towers. I don't think Elsa is the marrying type, actually" she added, as they rushed up the stairs. "She says managing the country and making up for the lost years with me are enough for her."

"She looks like a great sister" Jenny said.

"She is." Anna turned to Vastra. "Your sisters…" she asked hesitantly. "Did they leave, or…"

"No, they were killed. All of them" Vastra said bluntly. She smiled, in a way that was far too reptilian this time for comfort. "The Doctor helped me get over it. It was only an accident, actually. There was no need for me to get revenge for that."

"I'm sorry" Anna said softly.

They emerged on a balcony, swept by the wind. The roars of the Ice Beasts could be heard from below.

"Perfect" Vastra said. She looked down. Most of the castle and its courtyards were visible. "Now we wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Wait for the Doctor's signal."

"Oh, what will it be?"

"I don't know. We will know when we see it" Jenny said jovially.

"Don't worry, girl" Strax said in a tone that he probably intended as reassuring. The short man had been tottering along them at a surprising speed for his stature. "These monsters are only made of snow. We can dispatch them easily with a heavy use of laser weapons, as you saw us doing before. Plasma weapons also do wonders against them."

"But… do the guards have these… weapons you speak of?" Anna smiled for a second. "Oh, but this is the future. Elsa always says great things would be possible with science in the years to come… Is that one of those future science things?"

"Yes" Vastra said briefly over her shoulder. "But now is too soon for that. Our weapons are… special."

"Oh." Anna looked down disappointedly.

"Here, boy" Strax said, handing a strange metallic object to Anna. "You can have this if you want to defend yourself."

"Is this… a weapon?" Anna asked, gingerly taking the object. It looked uncomfortably like a pistol. "And I'm still a girl, you know."

"Strax!" Vastra called, in a reprobating tone.

"Don't worry, Madam. I'm not sharing technological secrets with the primitives of this planet. This is a very low-yield laser gun, clearly insufficient for killing a humanoid quickly enough to prevent him from activating his own weapon, should it have one. But even with this low power", he added with evident enthusiasm, "this can melt ice at more than two hundred feet. You point it like this" he added, placing the weapon in Anna's hands, "and then you press there when there is an enemy you wish to reduce to a pile of ash." He looked up at Anna's shocked expression and Vastra's scolding one. "Or, in the current case, a puddle of water" he added reluctantly.

Anna looked at the small object in her hand. Gunpowder weapons had always made her nervous, even though she had not seen a lot of them up close. It seemed far too easy to hurt people with them without wanting to. The strange design of this gun did little to make her at ease, even though Strax had called it a 'lesser gun'.

Jenny stepped up and looked at it.

"Oh, it's that one" she said. "Don't worry, it really does not carry a lot of power, and its batteries are almost empty" she added reassuringly. "That means, it does not have a lot of bullets to fire" she added, looking at Anna's puzzled expression.

"Here, girl, you can test it over there" Strax added excitedly, pointing at a pile of snow on a rooftop below.

Anna pointed the strange weapon and pressed the button Strax had shown her. There was a high-pitched whine, and a ray of light shot from the weapon, hitting the snow that sizzled and evaporated. She released the button, looking at the clear hole the weapon had bored into the packed snow. She knew what kind of heat it took for ice to melt, and she wondered what this weapon would do if striking someone. The fact that Strax had assured her it would not kill people outright did little to reassure her.

"You don't have to use it" Vastra said. Turning her head, Anna realised the green woman had been observing her and had probably noticed her slightly horrified expression. "But you may want to keep it in case you have no other choice to." She looked at Anna's uncomprehending expression. "I know this weapon frightens you. But imagine you could use it to protect your sister…" she left the question hanging.

Anna looked below. There were a lot of white shapes moving fast across the frozen fjord.

* * *

"You want to go outside?" Iduna asked incredulously.

"Yes" the Doctor answered bluntly. "I need to test a theory. It does not have to be the main courtyard. In fact, the further it is from the courtyard where all the Ice Beasts are converging, the better."

"Well, I think there is a small area over there" Iduna said hesitantly. "But the door is locked and barricaded."

Elsa looked at the corridor around them. This part of the castle had been abandoned, but she could recognise it.

"That's… the garden over there" she volunteered. Iduna shot her a suspicious glance.

The Doctor strolled over the barricaded door. His sonic screwdriver whistled as the lock clicked. He turned to the two women.

"Now I need some help removing those bars."

"But Doctor…" Iduna said hesitantly. "If you open these doors the Ice Beasts will be able to enter."

The Doctor theatrically cupped his hand behind his ear.

"They are far from here, judging by their roars. Also, we won't be there for long." He grunted as he heaved one of the large wooden bars blocking the door. "You know" he added, "I'm definitely the brain here. That leaves you to be the muscle, and I'm pretty sure it's the muscle and not the brain that moves beams of wood around."

Elsa waved her hand. Ice grew from the walls, pushing the bars of wood away.

"So you really are the Snow Queen?" Iduna asked. "Only younger?"

"No. I told you, I'm Queen Elsa."

"But you will become the Snow Queen?"

"I… don't think so. I…"

"It's more complicated than that" the Doctor interrupted as he pushed the door open. It soon got stuck against the snow piled outside, but there was enough space for the three of them to slip through. Elsa gasped as she managed to recognise the shape of the inner garden under the piles of snow and ice.

"What now?" Iduna asked.

"Now we wait." He pointed upwards. "And I don't think we will need to wait for long" he added, as an uncomfortably close roar erupted suddenly above them.

Elsa shivered and moved closer to the Doctor. Iduna drew her sword.

"So, if you are Queen Elsa from the past, could I prevent the Snow Queen to exist by killing you now?" she asked matter of factly as she looked at the dilapidated galleries above them.

"You can't prevent anything by killing people" the Doctor answered severely. He was holding the whistling sonic screwdriver above his head. "Apart from them living a boring life, and there are better ways to prevent that."

A white shape appeared on a collapsed gallery above them. With a roar, the Ice Beast jumped and landed a few meters from them.

"Platinum! Move over there!" the Doctor called, pointing to a wall.

The Ice Beast cocked its head, looking at the group. It focused on Elsa and roared again. The blonde girl raised her hands defensively. The Doctor stepped toward the beast.

"Hello" he said in an expectant voice. "I get it, you are angry, but is there something we could do about it?"

With another roar, the beast swatted the Doctor away without looking. The grey-haired man rolled in the snow a few meters away. The Ice Beast shook its head, and slowly circled Elsa, grunting. Other roars erupted around them, definitely closer.

"Doctor?" Elsa called. "What am I supposed to do?"

"It does not seem to want to talk. Try to see if you can get it to listen!" the Doctor shouted back, getting up, his sonic screwdriver in hand. Iduna moved at his side, her sword raised defensively.

Elsa looked at the Ice Beast. It reminded her a bit of Marshmallow indeed. A demented, feral, distorted version of the large snowman, who she already considered as unnecessarily intimidating.

"Hello?" she ventured. "Can you hear me?"

The Ice Beast suddenly turned its head toward the Doctor and Iduna. It reared, roaring, then charged at them without warning.

"Stop!" Elsa shouted futilely. "Come back! Stop! Down!"

Iduna stepped forward, her sword raised, shouting in defiance. The Ice Beast roared in response.

Elsa flicked her hand. A pile of snow appeared above the charging beast and dropped on its head, stopping it dead in its tracks as it was about to collide with Iduna. The young woman swung her sword, which plunged deeply in the snow.

The beast roared, muffled under the snow, and tried to shake itself free. Elsa kept the flow of magic erupting from her fingers. The white powder kept piling on the beast until it eventually stopped moving.

Roars erupted from above. The three of them looked up to discover new Ice Beasts approaching from above the walls.

"In the castle, quick!" the Doctor shouted.

The rushed inside and slammed the doors behind them. It took Elsa a few seconds to calm herself enough for being able to remove the ice that had dislodged the bars, and the Doctor and Iduna moved them back in place.

"Fine!" the Doctor exclaimed, his sonic screwdriver whistling as the lock clicked. "Now we know that they don't want to talk, even to you. On the other hand, they don't seem to want to hurt you either." He rubbed his hands. "But they seem to be drawn to you just like ice-cream brain is!"

Iduna was looking at Elsa, visibly preoccupied.

"Are you all right?" she asked eventually.

"Yes… yes I am, thank you" Elsa said, trying to catch her breath.

"Thank you" Iduna said grudgingly. "For… stopping the Ice Beast. I would have got it" she added, straightening up, "but your help was appreciated."

"No you would not" the Doctor cut, strolling away resolutely. "These bladed weapons probably don't do much to creatures made of ice. So, we know how to lure these Ice Beasts away" he added, turning to Iduna. "This would leave you the time to evacuate."

"We won't. My father told you, we stay and fight."

"I feared as much" the Doctor sighed. "Very well…" He turned to Elsa. "Are you ready to run around for a while, Platinum?"

* * *

"Something's happening, Madam!" Jenny said, pointing downwards.

Anna, Vastra and Strax looked below the dilapidated parapet. The roofs of the castle were now crawling with Ice Beasts, jumping around, roaring, and occasionally charging against a weak wall or a door. So far, they had not seemed to be able to penetrate very far into the castle.

But now most of them seemed to be converging toward a remote part of the castle, roaring excitedly. At the same time, hesitant shapes could be made out venturing in the courtyard.

"I think this is the Doctor's signal" Vastra said.

"Madam! Permission to shoot at these beasts!" Strax asked expectantly.

"Not yet" the lizardwoman answered firmly. She looked down. One of the Ice Beasts had ignored the others and was galloping toward the courtyard. "Just stop that one below" she said, pointing to it.

"With pleasure" Strax said, licking his lips as he aimed his weapon.

The ray of light hit the beast squarely. It roared, then its roar slurred and died down. Anna could not help wincing.

"The beasts are moving again" Jenny said.

The white shapes were now almost all running along the same direction on the roofs of the castle. Anna squinted, trying to project in her mind the image of the pristine castle she knew over the snowy landscape.

"They are running along the old cloister" she mused. The beasts suddenly changed direction. "Now that's… the corridor leading to the gallery with the paintings. It's as if they… knew where to go."

"Maybe there is something drawing them in this direction" Vastra said cautiously. People could be seen running in all directions in the large open space, apparently setting up piles of wood against its walls. One of them was strolling resolutely among them.

"That's the Doctor" Jenny said.

Some of the beasts were not following the others and galloped toward the courtyard. Strax yelled savagely, firing his large strange looking rifle. Rays of light flew from it, striking the hapless beasts below that roared as they began sizzling and melting.

"This is too easy even for target practice!" he shouted excitedly.

Anna could not hide the of disgust and pain that she felt on her face. She was suddenly aware of Vastra's strange eyes fixed on her.

"We need to protect the Doctor and the people of Arendelle to set up whatever he devised" she told Anna.

"Yes I know but… I'm sorry, they remind me too much of Marshmallow… He's… like them, but much nicer, once you get to know him" she answered. She turned to the other beasts that were running across the rooftops.

"What do you think is drawing the… they're coming toward the courtyard!" Anna exclaimed

"The Doctor is herding them here" Strax commented gleefully. "It will be easier to destroy them all at once in this enclosed space."

The beasts were now running toward the courtyard, following the path of the main gallery, Anna realised. The people down in the courtyard were now scattering toward the walls.

An unmistakable green clad shape erupted into the courtyard, sliding gracefully on a path of ice that seemed to follow it. It crossed the area and was reaching the opposite wall as the beasts began pouring into the courtyard.

There was a shout from below as the last beasts jumped from the walls and roofs, galloping toward the retreating figure. Fires erupted suddenly on all sides of the courtyard, rapidly growing into blazes. The beasts stopped, surprised, and began receding toward the centre of the courtyard, roaring confusedly.

The lizardwoman whispered something to Jenny, who nodded and aimed at the courtyard with another strange device.

"Cease fire now, Strax" Vastra ordered.

"But, Madam, I protest! Now we could make a significant impact on the enemy force!"

Jenny fired her device. A small object was catapulted into the courtyard and landed among the confused Beasts.

There was a strange sizzling sound. Then a reddish light suddenly engulfed the beasts as if a curtain was drawn above them. The light remained, like a sanguine soap bubble, wobbling as the beasts inside jumped around and hit it without passing through.

"Force field" Vastra said curtly. She looked at Anna's inquisitive glance. "Like an invisible wall. It should hold them for a while."

"Then… what are you going to do next?" Anna asked.

"I don't know. But I don't think the Doctor sent us here to shoot fishes in a barrel. The fires around the courtyard should melt them after a while."

Anna handed back the gun to Vastra. "I don't think I could use this against them."

"Keep it" the lizardwoman said, gently closing Anna's fingers around the weapon. "I fear your adventures with the Doctor are not over. You may need it, even if he does not want to use it himself."

"But… I don't think I could use this against any one, actually."

Vastra smiled sadly.

"I sincerely hope you will never find yourself having to use it, or wanting to. If anything, keep it as… a souvenir. We will probably never meet again."

Anna gingerly slipped the object inside one of the pockets inside her cape. These really were useful, even though she would have loved storing something else than a weapon there.

Something white landed on her glove. Snow was beginning to fall slowly. Anna looked up. The cloud above the northern mountains appeared to be expanding.

Or maybe it was getting closer.

* * *

Elsa looked curiously at the strange red bubble holding the Ice Beasts, trying to catch her breath.

"But… what exactly is a force field, Doctor? And how long will that hold?"

"Too long to explain. And long enough for them to be either reasoned with or melted by the fires around the courtyard."

"But that was months of our wood supply" Iduna exclaimed, joining them. "We may not be able to heat enough of the castle in the year to come!"

The Doctor shrugged.

"You wanted to fight those beasts with your swords. Fire is usually better for that."

The Ice Beasts were throwing themselves against the bubble toward them.

"But could not your friends in the tower have destroyed them with their light crossbows?"

"No. They are here to help, not do the fighting in your place." The Doctor turned sharply toward Elsa. "Have you tried commanding them? Or reshaping them?"

"Yes" Elsa panted. "I can't. There is something stopping me… As if this ice did not obey me. Like everything else around."

Iduna looked at her.

"Thank you for helping" she said gruffly. "Maybe you really are not the Snow Queen after all. But then…"

"She's Elsa" came a slurred voice at waist level.

Olaf had joined them and was looking at the confused Ice Beasts milling around inside the force field.

"My brothers will begin to melt" he enunciated in his flat, emotionless tone.

"I'm sorry, Olaf" Elsa said. "We could not do anything else to stop them…"

"I know." He looked up. "Elsa is coming."

"Yes, I know, I'm here…"

The little snowman shook his head and pointed at the mountain. The large cloud that had cornered the top was now hovering above the snowy slopes, leaving the top well visible above it. Snow was now falling continuously over the courtyard. The wind began to howl.

"Elsa is coming" he repeated.

Iduna looked up.

"Is that… the Snow Queen? The… real one?" she added, glancing at Elsa.

"It might be" the Doctor mused, looking above. "We can't remain here" he said suddenly.

Iduna and Elsa looked at him questioningly. He waved his arms helplessly.

"I'm sorry… I helped you against these beasts but… that's not the real problem. Something is wrong with time. With her timeline" he added, pointing at Elsa. "And I don't want to complicate it further by having her cross an alternate timeline of hers." He tugged at his lapels. "We need to go to the TARDIS."

* * *

The Doctor strolled along the dilapidated gallery, Iduna and Elsa in tow. The TARDIS appeared in the distance as they rounded a corner. The wind was howling, carrying snow and hail.

"Will Iduna be able to come?" Elsa asked nervously.

"I'm not leaving the castle" the young woman cut in a definitive tone.

The Doctor smirked.

"Time has been rewritten" he mused. "If we change it back… things may not happen as they did."

"Do you mean the country would not be frozen?"

"Yes." The Doctor hesitated a fraction of second. "And your parents may never have met."

Iduna stopped.

"Does that mean I would…. not exist?"

"Or her" the Doctor said, pointing at Elsa. "I'm still not sure in which way time was rewritten."

The door on the other side of the gallery opened. Vastra, Jenny, Strax and Anna walked out, followed by some guards who fruitlessly tried to stop them.

"See?" Vastra told Anna. "I told you they would be there."

They met in front of the TARDIS. Iduna was staying slightly behind them, her eyes fixed on Anna as she rushed to her sister and wordlessly hugged her.

"They say the Snow Queen is coming" Vastra said.

"So I heard. And we need to find what is wrong with time" the Doctor answered. The wind was howling intermittently in the corridor, forcing them to almost shout some sentences.

"But what will they do against this Snow Queen?"

"I can't afford to remain here to help them. I must investigate this paradox now. I already spent too much time here. Any more, and it will be impossible for me to find its source. And if I can fix it, maybe things will get better around here."

"And if the paradox is the other way round?"

The Doctor grunted, but failed to answer. The guards reached them.

"Excuse us, Sir… you need to come back inside the castle. If the Snow Queen really is coming... we need all the help we can get..." They looked nervously at Elsa and Anna, still embraced in front of the TARDIS door.

"Hey, are you…"

"No they are not" the Doctor cut in. "Listen, my good man, I have to leave now. I may be able to help you far more than you can imagine."

"Can you?"

The king was standing on the other side of the corridor, slightly out of breath. Iduna quickly moved to his side. The Doctor moved toward him, doing his best to step between him and Anna. Elsa gently tugged her sister aside to help him.

"Your Majesty, I need to leave you now. I may be able to help… this country."

The king was looking at the towering shape of the TARDIS behind them.

"It's the blue box" he muttered under his breath.

Iduna whispered something in his ear. The king shook his head incredulously.

"Listen" the Doctor went on "what is happening here… should not. Maybe. Something went wrong in the past. I may be able to fix it, but only if I leave now."

The king looked at him dubiously.

"Even if that was possible… what happens if you could not?"

"We will stay here and help you" Vastra said with authority. She looked challengingly at the Doctor who had opened his mouth to protest, then back at the king. "Is that acceptable? Your men have seen us in a fight."

"It's only ice!" Strax shouted enthusiastically. "Even untrained personnel armed with fire throwers and plasma grenades should be able to destroy it!"

The king gave him a puzzled look before turning back to the Doctor.

"But what can you possibly hope to accomplish, Doctor? What power do you have to stop… her?"

The Doctor stepped slightly aside, letting the king's gaze fall on the two sisters for a second, before blocking his view again. The king could not suppress a gasp upon seeing Anna.

"That's impossible…" he whispered.

"I told you" Iduna said softly.

"That's me. That's my power. I do impossible. Or at least I try." The Doctor hesitated. "I promise that if I can't fix this… I'll come back to help you."

The king looked at the grey haired man intently for a while. Then he took his decision.

"Let them go" he ordered to his men.

The guards hesitated, then backed up. The Doctor moved closer to the king, lowering his voice as much as the howling wind allowed it.

"You must know one more thing" he said. "If I fix this… If I change the past… Everything that happened here may never have happened. Some people may not… meet other people." He lowered his voice even more. "Or have children."

"Would that mean that Arendelle remains the kingdom it once was? And that… my mother… lives happily?" the king asked.

"That's a possibility."

"Then it's all that matters."

The Doctor nodded solemnly. The king nodded in response, then turned around and walked back toward the castle, casting one last glance at the two sisters as he left.

Iduna slowly walked up to them.

"I thank you" she said solemnly. "I'm glad I could have met you. Be… as happy as you can" she added, looking at Anna.

"Thank you" Anna said, puzzled. "Who are…"

But Iduna had joined her father and the retreating guards, turning a last time to wave at them. Then they all left, accompanied by Vastra, Jenny and Strax.

The blizzard increased again, blowing and puncturing their skins with minuscule icicles. Masonry crumbled around them. The already dilapidated walls were collapsing. The mountains behind could be seen briefly between two gusts of icy wind.

The Doctor produced a key and unlocked the door.

"In we go, now!" he shouted, grabbing Anna and pushing her inside the TARDIS.

The wind intensified. Part of the remaining wall collapsed, revealing the distant shape of the courtyard below, barely visible through the blizzard. Elsa slowly moved toward the gap.

"Let's go!" the Doctor shouted, halfway through the door. "No, you stay inside!" he scolded Anna, who was trying to join her sister.

Squinting to look through the hail, Elsa thought she glimpsed a distant figure entering the courtyard, surrounded with Ice Beasts. She could not make out the details, but she felt it look at her, and shivered. The wind became stronger.

Fascinated and horrified at the same time, Elsa tried to focus on the lone figure. It appeared to be wearing some kind of long gown, and walked slowly but resolutely, paying no attention to the wind blowing around it. Looking behind it, Elsa thought she glimpsed another figure wrapped in the snow. She was about to walk a few feet closer to the crumbling wall to have a better look, when two sets of hands emerged from the TARDIS and pulled her inside. The door slammed on the gale.

Another sound rose above the din of the storm, as the TARDIS light up, then slowly faded from the ruined walls.

* * *

Down in the courtyard, the Snow Queen looked up as an old memory rose in her mind. Then she snarled as something that was now a part of her also recognised the sound.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** I apologise here for having the Doctor do something he almost never does, that is going back in time to possibly prevent an event of which he was a part. But it is a bit different here since he suspects that time was rewritten and so he considers that he can be a bit more lax with the laws of time.

This chapter is the one that suffered the most rewrites as I had a lot of trouble to organise it into something coherent. I really wanted to have some interactions between Vastra's team and the sisters but I had trouble fitting everything together.

Anyway, we are barely halfway through the story, I hope you like it!


	5. All the timelines in forever

Anna looked with awe at the pulsating column atop the TARDIS console.

"It's beautiful" she whispered.

"She's more than beautiful" the Doctor answered, fiddling with the controls on the console.

Anna turned sharply at him.

"Now Doctor, where the hel…ck were we? How could this be Arendelle? What was happening? And why is my sister all gloomy?" she added, pointing to Elsa who was leaning against the railing surrounding the console, her arms crossed. She raised her head upon hearing her sister.

"I'm not gloomy" she said, doing her best to keep her voice steady and not entirely succeeding.

The Doctor looked up from his console.

"We were in the future of Arendelle. Your sister apparently froze the whole kingdom on the day of her coronation and never thawed it."

"But… but she did thaw it!" Anna protested indignantly. "I was there! And you have seen that everything was thawed when we left!"

"That's the problem, isn't it" the Doctor said sombrely. He looked from one sister to another, then sighed.

"What we have here is a paradox." he said at length. He gazed at Anna's uncomprehending face. "Disjointed timelines." Anna's face did not change. "Dissociated chain of events." Anna blinked and pouted. The Doctor sighed again, this time more theatrically. "In your present, happy thawed kingdom. In the future, very sad never thawed kingdom. Contradiction. Either your present is wrong, or the future is wrong. Do you get it now, or do I have to make drawings on a blackboard?"

"I understand" Elsa said in a calm voice, as Anna was opening her mouth to say that she would like to see the drawings and even draw a bit herself. "People said I never thawed the kingdom, but I did. This future is not possible. Is it because we came here with the TARDIS?"

"No" the Doctor said with severity. "Travelling in the TARDIS does not change time like that. Something altered it. I suspect this is why the TARDIS came here in the first place. The old girl probably sensed that something was very wrong with your timeline. The question is, what was changed?"

"The TARDIS is a woman?" Anna said, looking at the rotating ceiling. "Wait, what? We know what was changed! Elsa thawed Arendelle, I know it, I've seen her doing it! This future is the one that's all wrong! We know what really happened."

"Listen to me, Freckles" the Doctor said softly, "the people in this time were also sure they knew what really happened. They have lived in this timeline, it is as real to them as your memories of your sister thawing the kingdom are to you."

"But… but I know it happened that way!" Anna said, more frantically this time. "I was there! I remember it! They have got to have it wrong!"

Elsa laid a hand on her sister's arm.

"I think I understand what the Doctor is trying to say, Anna" she said in the calmest voice she could manage. "It's like one of those dreams, where you remember something that never happened. You know, where you are absolutely sure of what you are supposed to be doing, even if no one told you?"

"You mean like the dream where I was sunbathing with Olaf, and I knew that he could not melt even though he had not his flurry, because you had made him sun-proof before we left? That one was weird" Anna added, making a face.

"Err… Yes. You remembered something that never happened, and during the dream you were sure it did. It's like that, is it, Doctor?" she asked imploringly.

"No. Not at all. But if it helps you understand it, keep it that way. That's not a bad comparison for allowing a pudding brain to understand. So, to use your words, either we or they are dreaming, and what we want to know is who is actually dreaming and who is not, and whether breakfast will be ready when we wake up. Actually no, not that last one, it has nothing to do with the problem. So forget about the breakfast and think about waking up, only you don't know who will be waking up. It's like that poem with the butterfly, which you have not heard about yet."

Anna looked at the Doctor gravely.

"Are you saying that the bad future could be the right one? That Elsa could have not thawed the kingdom and that we would be… dreaming that she did?"

"Right now, I have no way to know."

"Well that's WRONG!" Anna shouted suddenly.

"Anna…" Elsa said, laying a soothing hand on her shoulder. The princess ignored it and marched to the Doctor, her index raised.

"I KNOW Elsa can't be doing this! She can't have kept Arendelle frozen all this time! She can't have been creating those horrible Ice Beasts! They are the one who are dreaming, and it's a nightmare! She's living a nightmare! And… I'm probably living one too, wherever I am in this bad future!"

The Doctor looked at the furious eyes and gently pushed aside the raised finger.

"Believe me, I'd rather be them… dreaming… than us."

"I'm telling you they are! They are having a nightmare! They probably ate something wrong before going to bed, or had a row with someone! I never had a nightmare without a reason! They have to be awaken and given a hot cup of chocolate!"

There were tears in the furious blue eyes. Elsa gently closed her arms around her sister's trembling shoulders.

"Don't worry, little sister. We will fix it. The Doctor will fix it. You are going to fix it, right, Doctor?"

"I will need your help" the Doctor said with sudden energy, rushing back to his console.

"I will help!" Anna shouted. "And Elsa can help too! She will freeze the nightmares! And I will… bash them!"

"No, by bashing things you won't" the Doctor scolded, jumping around the console, frantically toggling switches and levers, and ducking to pull some wires from under it. "I need your timelines."

"You need what?"

"The timeline where we are now is in contradiction with your own timelines. I need to find the main point of divergence, and for that, I have to use the memories of your timelines as a beacon for the TARDIS to home in."

"Will that hurt?"

"Only if you don't behave" the Doctor said seriously, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and activating it over a wire he had pulled before plugging it into the console.

"Can't we simply go back home? I promised Olaf we would play together while Kristoff is away delivering ice."

"Right now, I have no way to guarantee what happens in your present. Actually, it's very likely that you would find a sad frozen kingdom." The Doctor extruded a strange looking handle from the console. "Now hold this, both of you!" he added.

Elsa looked at it dubiously.

"Are you sure it won't hurt?" she asked.

Anna grabbed the handle.

"No it does not" she said, looking mildly surprised. "Come on, Elsa, we have to fix the… the nightmares time things."

Elsa seized the handle hesitantly. She felt a small tingle go through her hand.

"Fine" said the Doctor from the other side of the console. "No I want both of you to concentrate on your past. It will help me to pinpoint the divergence more easily. Oh, and" he added as if an afterthought, "hold on to the console. The ride may become shaky."

He swung a lever. The TARDIS shuddered violently. A stuttering sound echoed in the room, as if the TARDIS was hiccuping. Anna and Elsa instinctively grabbed each other's free hand.

"We are now flying between your possible timelines. Look at the scanner screen and tell me if you see something you remember" the Doctor shouted above the groaning of the engines, pushing a large screen attached to the console in front of them. The sisters raised their head to look at it.

"Hey, there are images on this screen!" Anna shouted enthusiastically. "Is that like a kaleidoscope?"

"No it's not!" the Doctor shouted back, as the groaning of the TARDIS intensified. "It's a temporal scanner currently focusing through the Time Vortex onto the timeline of yours we are currently flying by, and I'd suggest you examine it closely as this is a rather complex manoeuvre I'm doing right now and I don't intend to do it forever!"

"But that's us! Look Elsa! This is us on the screen!"

"It… looks like us" Elsa answered dubiously. "But we look… strange. And what are you doing with this urn?"

"I don't remember this, Doctor" Anna shouted. "You're right Elsa, we really look strange. As if we were making a face or something… And I don't know how to fight with a sword! Not that well anyway… but that necklace I have looks nice, though."

The TARDIS shook. The floor tilted in various directions. The images on the scanner shimmered and changed.

"That's you, Elsa! This time you really look like you! Wait, what… are you getting wed? Who is your husband? Who are all these men?" Anna shouted, as images began changing rapidly on the screen.

"I don't know" Elsa answered, halfway between embarrassment and disgust. "Was that… Hans? And… Kristoff now!?"

"This is _not_ us!" Anna shouted with ferocity at the Doctor. "This did _not_ and will _not_ happen! Mind you", she added as the images changed once more, "this white haired boy is rather cute."

"Too skinny" Elsa said, making a face. "The dark-haired one looked better."

"Oh, yes, he's also a bit skinny but he was… Wait, are you talking about the big one? Have you seen the size of his hands? He'd crush you!"

"What is it, Anna" Elsa said mischievously, "don't tell me you have something against strong guys?"

"If you two would stop failing the Bechdel test" the Doctor shouted severely, clutching at his console, "and concentrate a little more on finding the correct timeline, maybe we could actually land and not get lost forever into the Time Vortex!"

"But none of this is the correct one, Doctor!" Elsa shouted back. "It shows me getting wed with different men, most of which I've never met and some of which I'd never even hold hands with! And I don't even want to get married!"

"Oh, this reminds me something Madame Vastra wanted me to tell you about… Hey, now that's me in a wedding dress" Anna said cheerfully. "I look good… Wait, what is Hans doing there?!"

"Hold on!" the Doctor said, yanking another lever. The TARDIS rose in pitch as the floor tilted once again, while the image remained blurred for a few seconds before recovering its clarity.

"Hey, I recognise this!" Anna shouted. "I… remember this" she added, casting a concerned glance at Elsa.

A thin layer of frost appeared on the handle around Elsa's hand. There she was on the screen, crumpled on the frozen fjord, while Hans advanced on her with his sword raised.

"This… looked like something we lived through" she stammered.

The sound of the TARDIS changed. The floor shook. The screen shimmered, but the image stayed. It showed Hans slowly raising his sword over the prone Elsa, but Anna could be seen rushing to them from the side.

"Hey, I will get to watch myself turn into an ice statue" Anna said, laughing a bit forcefully.

Her laugh died in her throat. Elsa gasped. On the screen, her counterpart was suddenly drenched in a red shower. The image of Elsa turned back in surprise, only to see something magenta collapse in front of her.

"This is not the right line Doctor!" Anna shouted frantically. "Change the image! Please! Change it now!"

The TARDIS shook. Frost began rapidly spreading on the console. Snowflakes fell around them.

"No, no, no, don't do that, you are destabilising the TARDIS!" the Doctor yelled.

The floor shook again, this time more violently. The image on the screen blurred.

"Look, Elsa" Anna shouted desperately, pointing at it, "the image is gone! It was another nightmare!"

The TARDIS engines groaned. The whole room twisted violently around them as frost completely covered the console. The Doctor grunted, flipping levers and switches.

"You are interfering with the flight controls! Stop doing that! You, Freckles, calm her!" he shouted at Anna.

"I'm trying! Elsa, look, the screen! I'm… all right again! Look at it! It's a good line of time! We are together! We are hugging and kiss… wait, what? Ewww! But I'd never… I don't love… Not like that! It's another wrong line, Doctor! We are completely mad in these images!"

Elsa's eyes were focused beyond the screen with its blurry images, her pupils little more than two dots, her teeth clenched. Ice was now spreading on the floor.

"Blood" she muttered. "A whole bucketful of blood on my dress."

"Stop this!" the Doctor shouted again. "I can't even locate your timelines now! We will get lost into the Time Vortex!"

"Did you hear, Elsa? We will be lost in time forever! Look, the screen is not… it's not showing anything now! Please, Elsa!"

"How do you spell 'forever'?" Elsa muttered absently, her eyes still unfocused.

"Listen Elsa, you are, like, totally freaking me out right now, you should, like, totally cool off, I mean, not cool off like, being cold, like, 'cause that's what you're doing right now, like, but cool off like… wait, why… why am I talking like that?!"

"Time resonance!" the Doctor shouted, desperately jumping around his console. "We are picking up echoes of yourself existing in different times through the TARDIS telepathic interface. There seem to be a lot of you two around! And there will be a lot less of us around if you don't stop freezing my TARDIS! Can't you find something all sisterly-wisterly to say that would calm down your… Now it's getting to me! I said I'd stopped with those words! That's not cool!"

The images were now shifting on the screen, some of them too quickly for Anna to see what they were about, others too bizarre for her to comprehend. The room seemed to be spinning faster. Sparks flew from the console. The Doctor jumped back and pointed his sonic screwdriver at the central column. The TARDIS groaned louder. The images on the screen stabilised for a few seconds.

"Hey look, Elsa, that's me" Anna said, tugging at her sister with her free hand. "I'm alive and not kissing anyone! Look I'm… lighting a fire… with… my hands?! But… that's not possible! I don't have powers! I'm ordinary! It's not the right line again! I'm completely ordinary! I'm not special!"

"You're special to me, Anna" Elsa whispered softly, her eyes regaining some focus. She looked around her and gasped. "Sorry!" she shouted, as ice began to disappear on the console. "I'm sorry! Sorry, Doctor! I was…"

"You were upset. I noticed" the Doctor cut sharply. He bent over his thawing console and pressed a button. The TARDIS stopped spinning, as the sound of its engines returned to a high-pitched stutter.

The images on the scanner blurred once more. Faces and scenes flew by.

"This!" Anna shouted! "This was my birthday! It happened! No, wait, sorry, wrong party! The banner at my birthday did not say anything about bananas…"

"No, this really happened, Doctor" Elsa cut in, unable to repress a nervous laugh. "I think this is the right line of time, Doctor!"

"What? But there never was…"

"Got it!" the Doctor exclaimed suddenly.

The room finally ceased to shake. The TARDIS engines stuttered once more, then the rising and falling complaint that accompanied its appearances echoed in the room. Silence fell with the last chord.

Anna slowly unclenched her hand from the handle, then turned to Elsa and hugged her tightly. She felt her sister trembling in her arms. Distant groanings and creakings could be heard from somewhere inside the TARDIS.

The Doctor flipped some switches, then pulled the screen to him and looked at it. It was now showing numbers and strange signs.

"We are at the main point of divergence between both timelines" he announced.

"I'm sorry, Doctor" Elsa whispered, trying to compose herself. "I was…"

"You were upset because you saw someone important to you die" the Time Lord said, walking past her. "That's not something to be sorry for. It's a very… human reaction." He walked to another part of the console and flipped some switches. "Although next time" he said, raising his head and looking at her threateningly, "try not to freeze my TARDIS when you do it!"

"I'll try" Elsa answered with a wan smile.

"And sorry to you too, Madame TARDIS" Anna added, looking at the central column. "My sister did not want to freeze you."

"Stop talking to it!" Elsa whispered. "This is only a machine! The Doctor will think you are a fool!"

"Oh, I'm a fool as well" the Doctor answered matter-of-factly. "Now, I need to see what's outside."

"Will it be a nightmare future?" Anna asked timidly, following him as he walked to the door.

"No", the Doctor answered confidently. "For one thing, we are in your past. Which reminds me… whatever happens here, DON'T! TOUCH! ANYTHING! This could create a paradox far more dangerous than the one we are trying to fix right now."

The Time Lord opened the door wide, revealing a vast expanse of snow, with snowy peaks in the distance.

A familiar ice palace towered above them.

* * *

 **Author's Notes** : This chapter was me having a bit of fun with some common themes in the Frozen fandom so I kept it short. I hope it's fun to read though.

I also absolutely wanted the Doctor to use "sisterly-wisterly", but since that's more something the Eleventh would say I had to find a way to cheat.

For the record, the scene that drives Elsa on edge when she sees it on the scanner is how I had intended to begin this story in my first drafts, before I decided to change a lot of things.

No that I had my fun, the story can go on. Stay tuned!


	6. Let it go wrong

The Doctor strolled a few feet out of the TARDIS and stopped sharply.

"Do you recognise this?" he said, turning back to the two sisters who had remained standing in the door-frame.

"Yes" Elsa said slowly, as she gingerly stepped out. "I… built this. This is where Anna came to see me and…"

"And you definitely did not reject her and strike her, unlike the king told us."

"Actually… I did reject her and… strike her, but, it was an accident! And I never… I never…"

Elsa passed her hand on her face.

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked with unexpected concern.

"Yes, sorry" she mumbled, "just feeling dizzy… what was I talking about? Oh yes, I built this. This is where Anna came to see me and..."

"Elsa, are you sure you're OK?" Anna asked, stepping out of the TARDIS.

"Yes, of course I am. Just… feeling… dizzy. Must be the ride… As I said, this is where you came to see me and… and… and… some… things… happened… Stuff." Elsa smiled wanly. "What were we talking about again?"

"Elsa? Is something wrong?" Anna asked, taking her sister's hand.

"Of course not! As I said, you came to see me there, and some stuff happened. Forgot what, will come back to me in a second. You came to see me there and..."

"In the TARDIS, now!"

The Doctor grabbed the young woman and forcefully marched her inside the box. Anna quickly followed back.

"I assure you, Doctor" Elsa said, "I'm quite fine…"

"No you are not" the Doctor cut. "You are too close to the divergence. This is impacting your memories."

"I did not feel anything", Anna said.

The Doctor looked at her, then back at Elsa.

"Then your memories probably changed before the divergence, but not your sister's. But the events so far have been almost identical, this is why the TARDIS is here."

"Elsa, are you all right now?" Anna asked with concern.

"Yes, I'm quite fine now. We can…"

"No, you can't" the Doctor said with authority. "You will both remain in the TARDIS, while I go outside to see what is happening. You will not leave it until I return. Is that understood?"

"But you said I had no problems with the divergence memory thing" Anna protested. "Why can't I come?"

"Because we are only here for observing. We must not interfere if we want to understand what is going on with these contradictory timelines. Now… you wait here, don't touch anything, and don't follow me."

The Doctor slammed the door behind him, leaving both sisters alone in the cavernous space.

"Is he always like this, Madame TARDIS?" Anna asked, looking at the column rising in the centre of the room.

"It won't answer you, Anna" Elsa scolded her sister. "I'm sure he means well. If we really are in the past, we probably should not interfere."

"Why not?"

Elsa racked her brain. Some old thought experiments of hers came back to her mind. At least her memory functioned correctly again, even though there was now an unsettling spot of doubt about some details from when Anna visited her in her palace.

"Imagine that you break something. And you can go back in time to prevent you from breaking it..."

"Oh that's right!" Anna exclaimed. "If the Doctor can travel in time, we could go back to fix everything I broke in the castle when I was young! There was this painting whose frame I broke when I…"

"No, wait", Elsa interrupted quickly, "listen, if you go back and stop yourself to break something… what will you remember?"

"What?"

"You will see yourself as a younger you, and stop her from breaking whatever you broke. But how will it feel? Right now, you don't remember encountering an older you coming to stop you. If you talk to yourself, will you remember it as you say it? Would your memories suddenly change…" Elsa's voice trailed off as the words evoked a very sad remembrance from her childhood, one that she was not sure had been fully fixed. In any case, she realised she was very uncomfortable talking with Anna about memories changing. She tried to switch to another track of her thought experiments. "Oh, and if you do stop yourself from breaking the frame, what will have happened? Will you still remember that you would have broken it? And would you still have decided to go back to tell you not to do it?"

Anna frowned.

"This looks complicated." She looked up, smiling mischievously. "Maybe I could go ask the Doctor if it really works like that and if we could prevent myself from breaking this frame?"

"Anna, stop!" Elsa shouted as her sister walked to the door. "The Doctor told us not to leave the TARDIS!"

"But I'm all right outside, you are the one with the convergence memory thing. I'm just going to ask him and come back!"

"But you can ask him when he's back!" Elsa shouted desperately, as her sister opened the door. Anna turned back.

"I'm just going to see how it's outside! I'm not touching anything! Just looking!" She stopped halfway through the door. "You can visit the dressing room in the meantime. It is huge!"

Elsa sighed as the door closed. Maybe she should have tried another way to reason her sister, but she knew that the fight was hopeless anyway. You could barely keep Anna in place in the castle, which she knew like the back of her hand, what force could have possibly prevented her to explore something that may be her past? Elsa herself had trouble refraining herself, even with the threat to her memories, and even knowing that the date happening outside may be the day her darkest fear had come true.

* * *

Anna trudged quickly to the snow toward the ice castle. The TARDIS had landed on the opposite side of the big stairwell that led to it, on the slope that rose behind the castle, which meant that she actually had to go down to reach it.

She had been to the castle a few times with Elsa or Kristoff and had had a lot of fun exploring it. Her sister had given her some skating lessons there while Kristoff was marvelling at the structure of ice, under the watchful eye of Marshmallow. She had even managed to get Elsa to play a game of hide and seek, which she was pretty sure that her sister had won only through cheating by rearranging the structure of the castle.

But the feature she remembered now was a window that Elsa had probably created for symmetry, but which happened to be almost on level with the downward slope. With a little run-up, it was possible to enter the castle through it and already be at the highest level.

She noticed the window below her and began running to gain momentum. Just as she was bracing herself for the jump, a cold voice echoed below her.

"I told you to stay inside!"

Anna nearly lost her balance as she jumped, but managed to grab the balcony, where she remained hanging. Below her, the Doctor scrambled back up.

"Why does nobody listen to me when I tell them to stay inside? Is your sister also walking around?"

"No, I think she stayed" Anna panted, trying to haul herself up to the balcony.

"Well at least one of you does as she's told. You should take her as an example."

"Hum… bit of help, here?"

"Where do you think you are going?"

"Inside the castle! That was where you wanted to go, right? Only there is no door on this side, and you said we should not touch anything."

The Doctor sighed theatrically, then reached up and pushed hard on Anna's soles. This gave her enough thrust to scramble onto the balustrade and collapse on the balcony. As she was recovering her breath, the Doctor collided with the balustrade and hauled himself up.

"Now, listen to me, Freckles" he hissed, crouching near her. "We are in your past, and possibly in a diverging timeline. You must not interfere with anything you see, no matter how much you want to. It could create a paradox of the worst kind. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand. You told me already! Hey, are there people talking?"

Anna had inched toward the window and tried to tug at it. She heard a whistling behind her and the large ice door slowly opened.

"Sonic screwdriver" the Doctor explained, showing her the glowing stick. "Also works for ice latches."

They cautiously entered. Anna recognised the large room, with the intertwined arches. She also recognised a voice echoing through the ice walls.

" _And you're alive?"_

"That's Elsa!" Anna whispered loudly.

"Do you know when is that?"

" _He's just like the one we built as kids!"_

"Wait, was that me? I sound… strange."

"That is your normal voice. Do you know what is supposed to happen now?"

"It's that day… the day Elsa froze the kingdom. She also froze my heart" Anna added matter of factly, "but she did not mean it! She did not mean any of this!"

" _We can't! Goodbye, Anna"_

"They… we… Elsa and… I, are going to come on this floor, Doctor!" Anna whispered as the voices echoed below.

The Doctor led her behind one of the thickest ice walls that was surrounding the central room.

"Do you remember if you came here?"

"No. Great hiding place, though. Until Elsa made the wall become transparent, that cheat!"

"Be ready."

"For what?"

"Telling me whenever something changes from what you remember."

"Even if it means that someone comes behind this wall?"

"Try to tell me quickly then!"

Both became silent, leaving Anna's pleading voice fill the castle, the strange echoes against the ice giving it an almost singing-like quality.

"Is that how I always sound?" Anna said eventually.

"Yes. What part of 'hiding silently' you don't understand?"

"But my voice sounds so high-pitched! And with all those strange inflexions…"

"Wait until you discover recorders." The Doctor quickly glanced at her. "You may live long enough to see one, provided you don't end up in the wrong timeline. Now hush!"

Footsteps echoed in the room. Crouching behind the almost opaque wall, Anna thought she saw a blue clad figure slowly enter the room.

"This is Elsa!" she whispered, inching cautiously to the side of the wall to get a better view. For once the Doctor did not try to restrain her and joined her instead.

" _You don't have to live in fear any more!"_ Anna's voice echoed, growing closer. _"I'll be right here now! For the first time since…"_

" _WILL YOU STOP!"_

Anna gasped. The Doctor looked at her intently. She slowly shook her head, then looked back at the room. The blue clad Elsa had whirled round, looking at the person standing in the doorway, which was hidden from their view.

" _Can't you please leave me alone when I want it, Anna!? Go back have fun to the castle! Why are you always chasing me?"_

"She never shouted…" Anna whispered, dumbfounded.

" _I don't want you to be alone…"_

" _Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free! Can't you understand that at last?"_

Elsa strolled to the large window and slammed the door open. Anna gasped as a magenta-caped figure entered her field of view, following Elsa to the balcony.

" _I'm free here! Free to do whatever I want! I don't need to hide all the time, I don't have to be afraid of hurting people! Why do you always have to follow me around?"_ Elsa's voice came from the balcony.

" _Actually we have this tiny little problem in Arendelle that…"_

" _Arendelle?"_ Elsa laughed. Hidden behind her wall, Anna shivered. It did not sound like any laugh she had ever heard from her sister. _"Look how small Arendelle looks now! So insignificant! I don't care about Arendelle! You can rule it if you want! Maybe that's what you wanted all along!"_

Anna opened her mouth to protest, but the Doctor squeezed her shoulder hard.

"She's not talking to you" he hissed. "You are not here."

Elsa strolled back into the large room. The figure in the magenta cape turned round and followed her from the balcony. Anna could not suppress another little gasp upon seeing her own face, bewildered and pained from the other side of the room.

" _Elsa, I never wanted… I only want you to be happy…"_

" _Then why did you never leave me alone?! Why were you always chasing me around, never leaving me in peace!?"_

" _I… I wanted to be with you… I never knew you would be so…"_ The strawberry blonde girl seemed to be on the verge of tears. Anna, who could not tear her eyes from the impossibly familiar face, felt a lump in her throat as well.

" _I sacrificed my whole life for you! Do you have any idea how hard that was?! Always remain hidden, always conceal, never feel? All of this to avoid hurting you?"_

" _Yes, I understand now, but there was no need for that, I know you would never had…"_

" _And you had to come every single day to pester me with your happy singing voice, asking me to play, as if there was no other concern in your life than what the next game would be… And I had to say no, and no, and NO, AND NO AGAIN! Because Papa said so and he was so damn afraid that I would hurt you! Papa and Mama's little girl!"_

A blizzard was beginning to blow in the room. Anna shivered behind her wall.

"Elsa never swears…" she uttered, bewildered. "She never said all of this… she simply was afraid for me and I did not understand…"

Her past self was making no attempt to wipe the tears that were now running on her cheeks.

" _Please Elsa… I never knew… I'm sorry… I only wanted you to be happy…"_

The wind howled as snow was blown around the room.

" _Then WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE NOW? I'm happy now! Simply leave me alone! ALONE!"_

" _Elsa, you are not well… Please, calm down, we can work this…"_

The wind stopped as Elsa whirled furiously to face her sister.

" _SHUT UP!"_

Shards of ice radiated from the blue-clad queen. Behind the ice wall, Anna winced in sympathy as she saw one of the shards hit her twin squarely in the chest.

"This… this happened" she quavered. "But she was not looking at me…"

Her twin staggered back, clutching at her chest, before kneeling down.

" _I… struck you?"_ Elsa asked, her voice a mixture of curiosity and horror.

" _I'm… okay. I'm fine..."_ the other Anna panted.

" _You're fine? I struck you and you're fine?"_

" _It did hurt a bit, but I'm…"_

" _You're fine? You're fine? I struck you and you're fine? That's it? So what, were you playing possum all those years ago? Making fun of good old Elsa? Or wanting to get Mama and Papa's attention?"_

" _Anna!"_

Kristoff entered the room at running speed, ending his course on his knees at Anna's level. Olaf followed him closely.

" _I'm fine!"_ Anna's twin said, looking at Elsa as he helped her back on her feet.

" _Who's this? Are you drafting all the men of Arendelle to look after you now? Do you also want to marry this one?"_

The ice castle was creaking around them. Anna nearly shrieked when the wall behind which she was hiding almost moved as it changed colour, taking a darker tint.

" _Elsa, please, I don't know what you are talking about. Please, come back with us, we can fix this together, you are not…"_

" _I feared to hurt you all my life and you never were in any danger?"_ Elsa raised her hands, her face contorted into a feral expression that made her look like a different person altogether. Anna saw the sparkles around her sister's fingertips. She now knew perfectly well what that meant, but her younger self apparently failed to make the connection.

" _Of course I'm not in danger with you, Elsa! Please, calm down, you're upset, we..."_

" _You're not in danger? Then if you're not in danger you will not feel THIS?"_

Elsa raised her hand. Anna saw the blue flash in her sister's palm.

Kristoff grabbed her younger self by the shoulders and began pulling her behind him.

The Doctor moved to get a hold of Anna's arm.

He was one fraction of second too late.

Anna jumped from behind the wall, half running, half skidding toward the little group.

She balled herself up, her arms extended in front of her. Her feet positioned themselves on her own accord in the skating position Elsa had spent many lessons teaching her. _Well, maybe not this Elsa…_

Anna collided into Kristoff as he was stepping in front of Elsa's blast. The shock sent him and her twin skidding to the other side of the room, scattering Olaf's body parts in the process, as Anna, her momentum neatly killed, fell hard on the frozen floor. The silvery cold spray passed above her with a hissing sound, ending in the far wall with a crash of broken ice. Kristoff and the other Anna ended their course in a heap against the far wall.

Silence fell back, soon broken by embarrassed apologies from the other side of the room as Anna and Kristoff tried to disentangle themselves, and by Olaf excitedly shouting at his legs to come back to him.

Anna slowly rose from the floor, massaging her chin. She turned to the sound of heels approaching her, loudly clattering on the floor.

"What… are… you?" her sister asked, towering menacingly above her.

"Leaving!"

The Doctor had appeared at Anna's side, grabbing her arm and pulling her upright.

Elsa looked at the grey-haired man as he unceremoniously pushed Anna behind him, then glanced on the other side of the room at Anna and the ice harvester helping Olaf to put himself together.

"Who are you supposed to be? What is… this?" Elsa asked, pointing at her second sister.

Anna looked at the Doctor, who was now standing firmly between her and her other self. For the first time since she had met him, at least with this face, he looked as if he was at a loss for words.

"Why are you so angry at… her?" she could not stop herself asking.

This got a reaction from the Doctor.

"We are leaving. Now!"

"But, Doctor," Anna protested as he began marching her back toward the window, "Elsa is not right! We must…"

" _Doctor_?!"

Elsa's shout echoed in the castle as rays of ice once again radiated from her. Anna turned to see one of the shards flying straight at them, before the Doctor violently pushed her aside. Struggling to keep her balance, she reflexively glanced at the other side of the room in time to see the shards mercifully missing her other self and Kristoff, who she saw cringing as they flew over them. She heard the Doctor gasp and looked up to see him holding his chest.

"Get out! Everyone get out! Leave me alone!" Elsa was shouting.

She gestured as if throwing something on the floor. A cloud of ice rose from it and coalesced into a form. Anna found herself peering anxiously at it, and was relieved to see it take the familiar shape of Marshmallow instead of something scarier. The hulking snowman formed facing Kristoff and her past self, and went for them, picking them up like rag dolls.

"You too! Get out! Get out!" Elsa shrieked, pointing at Anna and the Doctor.

Marshmallow turned ponderously, still holding the struggling Kristoff and the other Anna. But the Doctor reacted first. Straightening up, he seized Anna's wrist and headed toward the window from which they had entered.

"Run!"

The Time Lord and the princess erupted on the balcony. Anna could not repress a little yelp as the Doctor kept running toward the balustrade.

"Jump!" he shouted, giving her a push.

Anna half-jumped, half rolled over the balustrade and fell face-first into the snow. The Doctor landed a second later a few feet from her.

"Are you OK?" he asked, pulling her out of the snow.

Spitting snow, Anna was about to answer when he cut her.

"Do you know what happens next? Was that an Ice Beast she invoked?"

"No" Anna protested, "that was Marshmallow… he's a bit rough, but he actually did not mean to harm us…"

The Doctor grabbed her wrist and began marching up the slope toward the TARDIS, pulling her behind him.

"So your past self is not in immediate danger right now? If your sister leaves ice-cream brain's big brother do the dirty work?"

"I… think… I hope so…" Anna panted, trying to keep up with the Time Lord.

As if answering her, her own voice echoed from the mountain behind them.

" _It's not nice to throw people!"_

"Yeah", Anna said cheerfully. "That's me and my strange-sounding voice after he threw Kristoff and me out. I will make him mad right after that. That did happen."

The Doctor did not answer, still trudging purposefully forward. Marshmallow's roar echoed behind them, now more distant.

"Oh, and now I made him mad. I threw a snowball at him. Everything is back to how it was! I fixed it!"

"You did not fix anything!" the Doctor said finally with ferocity. They were now a dozen meters away from the TARDIS, which stood reassuringly on the slope above them.

"Yes I did! Elsa was not doing anything like I remembered, and she wanted to fire some ice at Kristoff and I, then she created Marshmallow like I remember and…"

"I told you not to do anything! Do you remember me saying that? I said it because I wanted you not to do anything."

The Doctor pulled his key from a pocket as they approached the blue box.

"Now that you have interfered, we are part of these events. We can't leave this timeline!"

"What? But… it's become the correct one, now, right?"

"You tell me" the Doctor said, unlocking the door and swinging it open to let her enter. "Do you think the correct timeline is the one where your sister becomes mad at you, knowingly freezes your heart, and attempts to shoot an ice shard at you?" he asked loudly, entering the TARDIS.

The lone occupant of the TARDIS, who had been huddled near the console, stood up and gasped.

"Does it seem like something you could have done" the Doctor asked, striding toward her, "holding your sister responsible from your isolation, and trying to strike her with some kind of ice missile when you realised that a shard of ice going through her chest had left her standing?"

"Doctor!" Anna hissed indignantly.

"Hush, miss 'I fixed everything'! Go on, Platinum, tell me, was it something you considered that day?"

"No!" Elsa said, looking horrified. "I never held Anna responsible! I did not realise I had struck her, I would have sent her to the Trolls if I had known, I would never…"

"Please refrain from freezing the TARDIS again. Trolls? Do you mean, actual Trolls or simply those people who like to… Never mind, we'll come back to that later. Now, please answer me truthfully. Do you really mean what you said? Or are you saying that because it would make you look bad, or because it really felt like a bad idea in retrospect and you are glad you did not do it? I need you to be honest, it's very important."

"No" Elsa said, more forcefully this time. "I was never angry with Anna. Well… maybe a few times I did snap at her when she was knocking on my door, sometimes without her hearing me but… no, Doctor, I never wanted to hurt her. I always loved her! You have to believe me, Doctor! Whatever you saw me doing out there, it was not me!" Elsa said, trying to keep her voice from faltering.

The Doctor kept looking at her intently for a few seconds. Anna wordlessly walked up to her sister's side and clasped her hand tightly.

"Now it is" he whispered eventually.

"Wait, what? Doctor, Elsa told you she would never have done…"

"Doctor, I swear to you that I never wanted to hurt Anna! It was my worst nightmare!"

"I believe you." The Doctor took a deep breath. "But it does not matter now. It would have been simpler if you had, although that would not have explained why the timeline switch happened so suddenly. But now we don't have a choice."

The Time Lord looked at the two pairs of uncomprehending blue eyes.

"Time is not fixed. It's fluid. It is always being rewritten. You can take another decision, even if you already took it." He sighed at the sisters' blank expression. "Do you sometimes wonder whether you had tea or coffee for breakfast the day or the week before? Or whether you went for a stroll in the park or stayed at home a particular day some months ago?"

"Chocolate" Anna chirped. "I always drink hot chocolate for breakfast."

The Doctor glared at her.

"But sometimes, I do fail to remember if I did something or other" she added after a few seconds. "For instance, Kristoff and I can never agree what we had for picnic when we went to see the Northern Lights in the mountain last month. I'm sure there were sandwiches, but he insists he had me try the speciality from his adoptive mother with moss in it, but I'm pretty sure that was the day where we…"

"I don't care" the Doctor cut sharply. "The important point is that both of you could be right. Maybe at one point you did, and then you did not. Time is constantly rewritten. When you hesitated between two choices, and took one, and forget which one you took, you are simply oscillating between two states. Two timelines, two very minor timelines, only separated from one another by your petty choices at a given moment in time, and otherwise identical for everybody else. Do you understand that?"

"So, what you are saying, Doctor" Elsa said slowly after a few seconds of silence, "is that we could take another decision… in the past? For instance, I could have… not frozen the kingdom last year?" She bit her lip. "Last year for us, anyway."

"No you could not. Because you perfectly remember that day, and it had consequences for everyone around you. You, as you are standing now, could not switch to a timeline where you did not freeze the kingdom. In a few decades, when you are old and senile and don't remember the past well, while everyone who was around at that time is equally forgetful or dead? You could. Memories are the key."

Elsa pondered his words for a few seconds, desperately trying not to think of the elderly Anna she had met mere hours ago.

"So… when you asked me if I could have wanted to… hurt my sister…"

"I wanted to know if this was a possible timeline. Of course, even if it had been you should not have been able to switch while your memory of it was so fresh, but that would have been a simple time oscillation problem, and I know how to fix that. But if this was not a choice you would have made… then your mind was affected by something external to your timeline".

The Doctor looked at Anna and Elsa's perplexed expression and sighed.

"Freckles!" he asked, pointing at Anna. "What did you say earlier?"

"That I drink chocolate…"

"Before that! About the dreams!"

"Err… that I dreamt about Olaf wanting to get a tan and…"

"No, no, no, the nightmares! You said something about what gives you nightmares!"

"Oh yes. There is always something when I have a nightmare. Either I ate too much chocolate, or had a row with the people from the paintings… That was, when I was younger, I talked with the people in the paintings" she added with an embarrassed laugh.

"This is what I mean. Not the paintings. The painting thing is stupid. Having a row with imaginary people is stupid while you could have tea with them instead. But if you see timelines as dreams, then something outside of the dream can give you nightmares. If Platinum changed so much, it is because something or someone influenced her. And not by time rewriting itself as I just explained to you."

"Oh, so this bad Elsa was influenced by something to be angry with me?" Anna said, finally seeing a connection to the subject at hand.

"Or this not bad Elsa here was influenced not to be angry" the Doctor cut sharply, pointing at Elsa. "AND" he added, raising his word above Anna's indignant protests, "she would remember always not being angry if the influence went back far enough."

Anna smiled broadly.

"Oh, I think I understand! We can go back in time to when she was influenced, and then…"

"No. We can't" the Doctor said flatly.

"What? But Doctor, we just…"

"Now that you have interfered, we are part of these events. We can't go back to alter them. That would create a paradox. We already have one with both of you around while the events outside don't seem to lead to you becoming yourself."

"But… we were in the future and we came back to now…"

The Doctor smiled a humourless smile.

"Yes. We were. And I already took a lot of risks by coming back in that time after interfering with the future. But now you changed the events that would have led to it, and, more importantly, you nearly crossed your own timeline. That is two very big no-no's when travelling in time."

"But I… What did I change?"

"You prevented your sister to blast you a second time. As I understand it, this should have led to the mountain guy being blasted in your stead. We… learned that in the future. Now you have prevented it, but at the cost of weakening the fabric of time with all these paradoxes."

Elsa wrapped her arm around the suddenly trembling shoulders of her sister and hugged her tightly, looking severely at the Doctor, who did not seem to notice.

"What does all of this mean, Doctor?"

"It means we are trapped in this timeline. If we leave now without fixing all those time alterations, we may not be able to come back to this time period."

Elsa squinted.

"You mean… we would not be able to come back to Arendelle? To where… when we left?"

"No. Time has become too tangled. Of course, that is only part of the problem. The other part is that, currently, the correct timeline is the one outside, where you threw up a tantrum and tried to blast your sister."

Both sisters shivered.

"But that did not really happen! I don't remember it happening!"

"Yet you felt your memories changing when you left the TARDIS. That was time reasserting itself, trying to make you become the local version of yourself."

"That means I would become… the Elsa who tried to…" Elsa left the words hanging, too horrified to complete the sentence. She hugged Anna even more tightly, but even that did not prevent the temperature around her to drop a few degrees.

"Of course, that would only be the beginning" the Doctor said in a reassuring tone. "It's very unlikely that the version of yourself from this timeline boarded the TARDIS, and that probably goes for your sister as well. You should probably not be here with me at all in this timeline."

"But is there nothing we can do?" Elsa asked desperately.

"Yes there is. We can try to find out what influenced you, and in which direction. And if you are lucky and it happens that the timeline you remember is the one that was rewritten… then we have to make sure it is restored."

"What happens if we don't?" Anna asked timidly.

The Doctor looked at them. "The TARDIS will protect you for a while, but she can't sustain such a paradox for long. You will both cease to exist" he answered matter of factly.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Anna's comments on her voice are not intended as a jab at Kristen Bell's lovely voice, but simply a reference to how one's own voice sounds strange when you hear it, and that she's supposed to be singing in that scene in the film.

What the Doctor explains about the past being constantly rewritten, with the proof being uncertain memories, is something I took from the "Good Night" mini-episode and expanded upon a bit with my own headcanon.

I'm playing a bit with the laws of time travel to prevent the Doctor from going further back in time to fix this, but these laws have always been rather fluid anyway (you probably need to be a Time Lord to understand them). Let us consider it is the same kind of laws that prevented him to rescue Amy and Rory from the past.


	7. Echoes of Arendelle

"Elsa? Are you OK?"

Elsa, who had been looking distractedly at a blackboard covered with strange equations, turned at the voice of her sister.

"Yes, Anna, I'm OK. I think." She glanced at the Doctor, who was running around the console, hitting things here and there and looking at his screen.

"No, you are not" Anna said with certainty. "You have that look again."

"What look?" Elsa attempted to giggle derisively, but stopped as she realised she was not sure how it would turn out.

"That look you have when you are worried about something but don't want to talk to me about it. It's like the one you always wore before, only you look happier when you have it these days. Listen, Elsa I'm not OK either. If the Doctor is right, and if we disappear because we don't do the right things… it will be my fault." Anna took a deep breath. "But at least I can talk to my sister before it happens."

Elsa could not stop a little smile from forming on her lips, while she felt tears at the corner of her eyes.

"Anna… you said I was angry? That I wanted to blast you?"

"That was not you. Something made this Elsa have a nightmare, and we have to wake her up."

"But Anna… what if I really could do this? What if this Elsa is not the one who is having a nightmare, and us who are dreaming? What if I became her?"

"You can't. You are not her."

Elsa looked down, feeling guilty.

"You know, Anna… there were times where I _was_ angry at you." She stopped, then went on as Anna remained silent. "There were a few times where I called you names… I whispered it… and one day I know I said that Papa and Mama liked you more… it was only a few times, I swear, Anna, but I did it..."

"Of course" Anna said soothingly, taking her hand. "And I badmouthed you to the people on the paintings a few times. And one day I threw your doll against a wall. That does not mean I hate you. Except" she added, doing her best to keep a straight face, "for cheating at hide and seek by making this wall of ice transparent and pretending it was never opaque. I just checked it used to be."

Elsa could not stop herself from laughing, and Anna joined in instantly.

"OK, you got me, I owe you one" Elsa finally said. "But if I felt anger at least once…" she went on, her seriousness returning, "maybe I can turn into her. Without any influence."

"You are not her, Elsa."

"But what if I end up thinking like her one day?"

"You can't. She is not the you that you are now. She was always alone, with me knocking on her door every day. That must be annoying!" Anna made a face. Then she went on, more softly. "But she did not live the past year. She was not there on the frozen fjord, where you hugged me, as if you'd never stop. She never taught me to skate, and I never taught her to ride a bicycle. She did not organise this marvellous birthday last month." Anna breathed. Elsa's vision had gone blurry, but she made no attempt to wipe her eyes. "She must be so sad, still feeling so alone and so angry. We have to show her how to become you. She must live this year."

"You do know", the Doctor called from his console, "that if you both disappear this idyllic year of yours will also disappear, right?" He swung a lever. The sound of the TARDIS engines filled the room as the central column began rising and falling rhythmically.

"Are we… moving?" Elsa asked, finally wiping her eyes, as Anna was frowning expressively at the Doctor.

"Yes." The grey haired man answered curtly. He winced suddenly, then went on. "In space, only. We are going to the castle. I want to see if I can find something there."

The sound of the TARDIS died with its usual chord. The Doctor circled around the console.

"Both of you, stay inside. I mean it this time." He pointed at Elsa. "Especially you, Platinum. Your past has already diverged from this one. You were protected before because we were displaced in time, but now we are too close to the divergence." He stopped in front of her. "The TARDIS is protecting you for now. If you go out, your timeline will realign with the one outside. Your memories will merge with your current counterpart, and you will eventually disappear, as she probably never travelled with me in the first time." He paused. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"If you leave the TARDIS, you will cease to exist. The year your sister was talking about will never have happened for you. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"What about me?" Anna asked suspiciously.

"You should be all right for a while" the Doctor said dismissively. "Your counterpart seems close enough to yourself. Your timeline will eventually realign, but not before…"

"Then I'm coming with you" Anna said resolutely.

The Time Lord glared at her in disbelief.

"Do you actually listen to what I just said? I told your sister that, if she goes out, she'll disappear!"

"I listened. You also told me that I should be all right."

"For a while!"

"You'll need me to give you directions inside the castle. And I already interfered a lot, so I can't do some worse interfering, right?"

The Doctor glared at her silently.

"Please, Doctor. If I'm responsible for… stranding us in this timeline, then let me help. I know all the passages in the castle! And I remember what happened today. Well, not at the castle, because I was not there, but… Please, Doctor! I want to do it for my sister!"

The Doctor sighed.

"Fine" he said eventually. "But listen to me, Freckles. You will do exactly what I say. If you don't, it's back to the TARDIS until either you disappear or I come back. Is that understood?" He winced.

"Of course Doctor. And my name is Anna, by the way" she added, with a hint of reproach.

"I guess you are not supposed to be at the castle right now" the Doctor went on, ignoring her, "because you were in the mountains a few minutes ago. When do you come back?"

Anna thought for a few seconds. "The next day!" she exclaimed eventually. "That's when Kristoff brought me back to the castle. And by now Hans must be sending a… rescue party. But actually he wanted to capture Elsa and the duke's guards wanted to kill her."

"Fine. That leaves us with a whole night, as long as we are sneaky", the Doctor said, marking his words while looking at Anna.

"What will we be looking for, Doctor?"

"I don't know. Anything that can explains why your sister became angry with you, or did not become angry."

"And when we have found it?"

"We'll see by then." The Doctor breathed deeply, grimacing. "You may want to find something more concealing" he resumed to Anna. "We don't want people to recognise you when you are walking around the castle. Try the wardrobe."

"Ooh, good idea! I'll see if you have masks!" Anna chirped, disappearing down the corridors.

"Are you all right, Doctor?" Elsa asked with concern.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be all right?"

"You looked as if you were in pain once or twice and…" Elsa stopped. She slowly stepped up to the Doctor, her palm raised. "Doctor? Did something happen in the ice palace?"

"Other than your sister interfering while I specifically told her not to? Or your past self apparently lacking your concerns about harming people?"

Elsa was slowly approaching her hand from the Doctor's chest, looking transfixed.

"There is… something…" she muttered thoughtfully.

She slowly placed her hand on the Doctor's chest.

"I can feel…"

She jumped back, blushing, as she realised what she was doing.

"I'm sorry! I did not want to… Ice!"

"What?"

"There is… ice. In your chest. In your heart." She looked up, her face a mask of horror. "She… I struck you?"

"I recall a shard of ice going through my chest. It was not pleasant."

Elsa backed up, covering her mouth with her hand.

"You were struck in the heart! Like I struck Anna before!"

"Is that bad?" the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You will turn to ice!"

"It's lucky I've got a spare, then" the Doctor answered enigmatically.

Elsa blinked uncomprehendingly.

"Maybe I can remove it… Can I try?"

The Doctor nodded. The young woman gingerly laid her hand on his chest and concentrated.

"I'm sorry" Elsa muttered eventually. "I can't… I can feel it as if this was mine but… I can't control it. It's like in the future… I can't do anything" she said desperately. "Are you hurting a lot? Your heartbeat sounded… strange."

"Oh, so you're an expert in heartbeats, now?" the Doctor asked haughtily. "My heartbeat is quite normal for someone with two hearts. I'm making sure of that."

"Two hearts?"

"Yes. Time Lord. Two hearts. Normal functioning brain. Time sense, along with many other senses you would not understand. Control of my heartbeats, body temperature and breathing, and many others functions that you don't even know exist. Although your powers are something I definitely lack. I could look into your mind to see how they work, but that would be cheating."

"How did you… gain a second heart?"

"I always had it."

"Is that a… power? Like me and my magic?"

"No. That's me being a Time Lord. From the planet Gallifrey."

"You… are not from Earth?" Elsa asked in wonder.

"Hello! Can you recognise me?"

Anna jumped into the console room, grinning broadly behind a magenta domino mask. Elsa could not suppress a giggle at the sight of her sister.

"Oh please" the Doctor sighed, glaring at Anna. "Do you think we are going to attend a masquerade? I said to find something concealing, not to dress like a comedian."

"Then I've got this" Anna answered in stride.

She removed her mask and pulled back a cowl she had tied above her cape. It flopped on her head, dropping above most of her face.

"Can you recognise me?" she asked from under the cowl.

"Can you actually see something under this?" the Doctor asked.

"Of course!" Anna chirped, raising her head, which meant that only her chin was visible from under the cowl. "I simply have to keep my head down a bit like that. And now we can go!"

Anna strode forward resolutely and collided with the console.

"Sorry!" she said, pulling back her cowl. "Sorry Madame TARDIS" she added, looking up. "OK, I think I get the hang of this now, I have to look down and slightly up so that I…"

"Anna" Elsa interrupted, "I struck the Doctor with my powers."

"Wait, what?"

"The… other me. In the castle. She struck him. Did you not see it?"

"What? No! Oh, this was when she blasted those shards the second time? You pushed me away…"

"I struck you twice?"

"No… No, the first time, you… she struck only me, when she began shouting at me. The other me. Then, she wanted to strike me, the other me, and I pushed Kristoff and me away, and the Doctor and I began running away, that is, the I that is me, and she blasted all those shards… But I thought no one was hurt this time!"

The Doctor loudly smacked his head.

"Stupid! I knew I was forgetting something… Maybe it's my brain that was frozen, instead… Thank you for reminding me, Freckles. Do you also remember what happened when Angry Platinum sent those shards flying around the second time?"

"You pushed me away?" Anna blinked. "So you saved me? I must thank…"

"Yes, yes, not my point. What happened just before?"

"We were leaving… And Elsa shouted something… I think that was… Doctor?"

"Your memory, at least, works correctly." He whirled round toward Elsa. "Platinum! Do you know what makes you send all those ice blasts around?"

"Her name is Elsa, you know…" Anna said in a small voice.

"I… I never did it on purpose" Elsa stammered, backing from the frantic Doctor. "The one time I did it… I was upset. Very upset. I had learned about the winter I caused on Arendelle and..."

"Upset. You send those when you are upset."

The Time Lord looked at Elsa intently.

"How would react to my name?" he asked eventually.

"Your name? I don't know your…"

"Doctor. That's my name. How would you have reacted upon hearing my name when these events happened to you?"

"I… don't know. I'm not even sure I would have recognised it at the time. I remembered the box, and… you… having a bow tie, but I really was not thinking about it that day…"

The Doctor smiled, but his eyes remained serious.

"And now you reacted to it… There may be something…" He winced again. Looking up, Elsa wondered if his hair was not slightly whiter than before.

"I'm sorry…" she muttered. The Doctor waved his hand dismissively.

"Do you think this would help you find why Elsa became angry?" Anna asked hopefully.

"Maybe. Now, let's go. We have not got all night."

"Doctor!"

"What?" The Doctor stopped on his way to the door and turned to Elsa.

"If… I can't remove the ice… The only way to thaw your heart is… an act of true love."

"True love?" The Doctor nearly guffawed.

"Don't you have a true love?" Anna asked gently.

"No. People don't love me. They fear me, need me, mistake me for their boyfriend, or are psychopaths brainwashed to be obsessed about me, but they don't really love me. And I don't love them. It's better that way. Now, can we go?"

The Doctor strolled to the door and turned when he realised Anna had not followed him. The strawberry blond girl with the oversized cowl was holding her sister's hands.

"Oh, for…"

The Doctor walked back to the console and rummaged around, then extracted a little metallic object that he tossed to Anna.

"Here. It's called a radio. This will allow you to stay in touch and wish you good luck any time you want." He fiddled with some controls on the console.

Anna looked at the little object perplexedly. Its main feature was a small sort of knob extruding from it. She pressed it.

"What does it…" Anna stopped as she heard her voice suddenly echoing in the console room. "What is…" Her voice boomed again around them.

"And if you let go of this switch, you can hear what people say in the TARDIS" the Doctor said, his voice suddenly erupting from the little metal object as Anna moved her finger from the knob. She nearly dropped it in surprise.

"That is great!" she said, her face lighting with one of her childish smiles. "I wish I had this when Kristoff goes ice harvesting!" She grimaced. "I still hate how my voice sounds when I'm hearing it."

The Doctor smirked as he adjusted more controls on the console, then walked to the door. Elsa cast a concerned glance at his hair, now sure that there were far more white strands than before.

Her sister's arms suddenly closed around her.

"I'll fix this, Elsa. I'll be all right. I promise. And we'll find an act of true love to do for the Doctor!" Anna said, hugging her tightly. She turned at the sound of the doors opening. "I'm coming!" she shouted, before turning back to the console. "See you, Madame TARDIS. Take care of my sister and please keep repeating everything I say to her in this little device."

The magenta clad princess jumped toward the door, turned one last time to wave at her sister, and stepped out.

The doors of the TARDIS slammed shut on Elsa.

And opened a few seconds later to let the Doctor's face poke through.

"Just one last thing" he said, pointing to a lump of snow a few feet from the TARDIS. "Could you try thawing this?"

* * *

"Elsa? Do you hear me now?" Anna whispered loudly into the little device.

The Doctor sighed as Elsa's voice, strangely distorted, erupted from the radio.

" _Yes Anna, I'm still hearing you."_

"As she did 5 minutes ago" the Doctor said dryly. He winced.

"Stop being such a killjoy, Doctor" Anna said petulantly. "I've never seen a thing like this! It's wonderful! Is it magic?"

"For the twelfth time, no, it's only technology. And not a very advanced one anyway. Are we still in the right direction?"

"Yes don't worry, this corridor was never used by many people, and with this winter there should be even less of them." Anna looked thoughtfully at the little radio in her hand. "It would have been so great to have this when we were little, we could have talked without Elsa fearing to hurt me! Elsa, do you still hear me?" she added, pressing the little knob.

" _Yes Anna, I'm still here"_ came the answer. _"Tell the Doctor I'm sorry I could not thaw the snow outside the TARDIS."_

"Does my voice sound funny when you hear me?"

" _It has some kind of metallic echo, but it really sounds like your voice otherwise."_

Anna stopped as she noticed the Doctor had stopped following her. Turning round, she saw him a few feet back pointing his sonic screwdriver at a lump of ice that was protruding from the wall.

"Doctor? Is something wrong with the ice?"

He turned his head sharply toward her.

"Was there so much ice inside the castle during the winter your sister created?"

"I don't remember well but… well, there was a lot of ice everywhere when they brought Elsa inside, but I think there was not a lot of it inside before… But I've not been for a long time inside the castle and not in this corridor anyway."

The Doctor grunted, looking at his screwdriver before resuming his brisk walk.

"Why do you want to see her room?" Anna asked, hurrying to keep up with him.

"You told me she spent most of her time locked in there. If there is something that affected her, it has good chances of being there. How did this happen exactly?" the Doctor added, with a broad gesture encompassing the frozen corridor around them.

"I… made Elsa upset. When she's upset, she freezes things around her, like she did in the TARDIS… She's in much better control now, but at the time she could not control it at all."

"And when she regains her calm, she can thaw any ice she created?"

"Yes, now she can always do it. Except when you asked her to thaw this snow, but it was not hers... But she could do it when we were in the TARDIS and she froze the console..."

"I know, I was there. Have you ever seen her not being able to thaw some ice? When she's calm and composed."

"After she thawed the kingdom? Well, there was this time when she tried to thaw some snow during winter, and when she was sick…"

"Ice that she created."

Anna thought a little.

"I don't think so. Why?"

The Doctor grunted again before answering. Anna thought she saw him briefly wince in pain again.

"In the future, she tried to stop the winter, and failed. She may have been weaker than her future self. But now, she should be able to thaw this ice. There is no reason to believe she's less powerful than her current self."

"She said it was not her ice…"

"Ice should not know anything about timelines. If your sister created it, no matter the timeline, she should thaw it. Unless there is something else..."

They walked in silence for a few seconds, as Anna tried to understand what the Doctor was saying. She turned to look at him, and realised he was clutching at his chest.

"Doctor, if Elsa can't remove the ice from your chest, you'll have to find an act of true love before you turn to ice" she said with concern.

"I told you, I don't love anyone. I'm not the boyfriend type."

"It... does not have to be… that sort of love" Anna said hesitantly. "I was saved because I love my sister and… I don't love her that way at all." She grimaced. "I don't know what happened in the timeline of that Anna I saw on your screen, but she was weird to… Eww." She turned to look intently at the Doctor. "Don't you have a family?"

"Not any more" the Doctor answered dryly.

"And friends? Maybe it works with close friends?"

"Stop bothering about me. I have… ways to stave this off. And if it comes to that, I also have a way out." Anna thought she saw a faint orange glow appear for a few seconds under the skin of the Doctor's hand. "Just not right now" he added, as the glow disappeared.

"Can you do… magic?"

"No. Not magic. Not this kind of magic anyway. But I can… control my body. In more ways than you can control yours. I can… slow down the ice for a while."

Anna looked thoughtfully at the enigmatic man. He was looking straight in front of him, and she got the impression that this was all he was ready to share for now. Looking around her to get her bearings, she pressed the knob on the radio.

"Elsa? We will leave the old gallery now. I will talk less because we may run into people now."

" _OK"_ Elsa's composed voice came from the little device.

"Doctor?" Anna asked after a few paces.

"What now?"

"If we fix this… What we saw happening in the ice palace… It will still have happened?"

"Yes."

"So… I will remember it instead of what really happened? I will always remember Elsa shouting at me?"

"Time is still in flux. You are part of the events and you travelled in the TARDIS, so you may be able to remember part of your old timeline. You may want to lower your cowl now" the Doctor added, as the corridor where they were walking branched into a larger gallery. People could be heard talking in the distance.

"What if we meet people?"

"You will pass by them without looking, as if you were busy with something. Can you actually see something with this cowl on your face?"

"Of course! I can see my feet and… a little after them."

The Doctor looked at her curiously as they walked. A pair of servants passed them by, carrying trays full of steaming bowls.

"How do you manage to know where you are going?" he asked after a few minutes. "That's the third time you avoid a piece of furniture with feet to spare."

"I told you I knew the castle well! I played blind man's bluff here a lot of times! It was a bit complicated to play it alone but… Wait, we have to take the gallery on the left."

Anna turned sharply, right in the middle of the branching gallery. The Doctor gently pushed her aside to avoid a lanky man with a goatee and a young woman with short brown hair coming from the opposite direction, shivering in their thin party clothes. They gave the pair a curious look.

"Sorry!" Anna said cheerfully from below her cowl. "Of course these galleries were emptier when I was playing there" she whispered conspiratorially to the Doctor as the couple of guests disappeared around the corner. "It will be the next door on the right."

The Doctor cast an appraising glance at the gallery.

"Ah yes" he said approvingly. "The TARDIS materialised there every time I visited you." He looked left and right across the corridor, then turned to the door, pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "Oh. New lock" he commented over the whistling of the device.

The door clicked open.

"Is this technology or magic?" Anna asked, pulling back her cowl and following the Doctor inside the room.

"Basic sonic technology. But somewhat more advanced than the radio."

Anna looked around. She had visited Elsa's room countless times in the past year, but she now looked at it with the strange mixture of familiarity and strangeness she had felt when exploring the frozen Arendelle in the future. The walls were covered in frost, and there were lumps of ice and snow in the corners. She glanced over the various pieces of furniture adorning the room, noticing the single chair near the desk. The chair she was now used to sit in when visiting her sister was missing.

"Is there anything here that looks strange to you?" the Doctor asked, his sonic screwdriver whistling as he slowly passed it over the room.

"Well… there is frost everywhere" Anna said hesitantly. "But I'd never entered in Elsa's room before… before tomorrow, actually. After she thawed everything." She slowly raised the little radio, pressing the button. "Elsa?"

" _Yes Anna?"_ came her sister's voice from the device.

"Was your room all covered with frost on coronation day?"

There was a pause before Elsa answered.

" _I… don't think so"_ she said eventually. _"I was very upset that day, but I remember concentrating on concealing as I was getting dressed. And besides, I was wearing my gloves most of the time…"_

"There are even lumps of snow…"

" _What?"_ For a second, Elsa's voice sounded as alarmed as she had been when her powers were revealed. _"That is not possible! I would have done anything to prevent that. The maids were helping me putting on the ceremonial cape, they could have noticed… Maybe this is the winter?"_

"Hello? Is there someone here? Your Majesty?"

The door opened slightly. A young woman with dark hair, a round head and big, brown eyes, inched into the room.

"I'm sorry, I heard voices and… Your Highness? Did you came back?"

The Doctor slowly turned toward the intruder, and started visibly.

"Your Highness? Everyone thought you were still in the mountains…" The woman stopped and cast a suspicious glance at the Doctor, who was still staring at her fixedly. "Are you all right, your Highness? Who is this man?"

"Oh, that's OK, he's with me" said Anna cheerfully, casting a concerned glance at the transfixed Doctor. "I simply wanted to… check… some stuff… in my sister's room… before I go to the mountains."

"But Prince Hans just left the castle looking for you, with a rescue party! They should be warned that you are back!"

"Please don't do this!" the Doctor spoke suddenly.

The woman crossed her arms and cocked her head to one side.

"Why not? Do you find it funny to have people go into the cold looking for Her Highness while she is all safe and warm in the castle?"

"It's not what you think" the Doctor said. "We need to…"

"Because I completely agree that it would be fun to do this to Prince Hans, but there are some people with him who don't deserve that. I'm sorry Your Highness" she added, smiling mischievously, "but he does look as if he needed some practical jokes played on him. I'm sure he'll do a fine husband", she added half-heartedly.

Anna smirked.

"He needs a lot of that indeed… but not right now, I think. Is that right, Doctor?"

"Yes" the Doctor answered, still looking fixedly at the young woman. "Yes of course." He turned his head sharply toward Anna. "Do you know her?" he asked, pointing at the woman.

"Yes, of course" Anna answered readily. "She's Osmine. Her mother used to work in the kitchens and she was allowed to come to the castle sometimes while it was still closed. She even tutored me a few times, because she is a teacher in the town and..."

"Of course she is" the Doctor muttered.

"It's good to see you, Osmine again" Anna said warmly. "It's been a while..."

The young woman looked puzzled.

"I… saluted you yesterday, after the coronation ceremony, Your Highness. We spoke a little. You don't remember it?"

"Oh yes, of course, of course", Anna said hurriedly. "Silly me, that was yesterday. Feels like a year ago, so much has been happening. I'm not sure I've seen you again since…"

"I came back to the castle to help after the… winter came. I was in the courtyard when… Queen Elsa left… Are you all right?"

"Oh yes, I'm fine. I mean, no, I'm sorry that my sister froze the country, but she thawed it when she... I mean, she will thaw it. Will have thawed it. If we fix the…"

"So you've known… Osmine… for a long time?" the Doctor interrupted.

"Oh yes. She explained me a lot of things about the paintings in the gallery. She's a very good teacher."

"I don't doubt it. Except maybe, when discipline is concerned?"

Osmine looked indignant.

"Do you know _him_?" she asked, nodding toward the Doctor.

"Oh yes, he's the Doctor. I… met him before. But he was not looking like that. And now we have to fix something in the time…"

"Listen to me." The Doctor walked to the woman, his piercing blue eyes still fixed on her. "It is imperative that you don't speak about anyone about having seen Princess Anna here." He breathed deeply. "I know I can trust you."

"How do you know that? You don't know me!" the woman answered indignantly.

"I know someone very much like you."

Osmine frowned, then looked at Anna.

"Is everything _really_ all right, Your Highness?" she asked, squinting. She slowly backed from the door-frame. "If anything is wrong, I can call for help, the guards should be there really quickly…"

"You won't do that" the Doctor said with a definite tone.

"Oh? And why not?" she asked defiantly.

"Because if you do you will never know what we were doing here" the Doctor said quickly.

"All right. What are you doing here?"

The Doctor hesitated for a split second before answering.

"Why did you come here anyway? The fire has not been lit here" he said, pointing to the empty fireplace, "and everybody has been gathering toward the heated parts of the castle."

Osmine looked at the Doctor severely.

"You did not answer my question!"

"Please, Osmine" Anna said. "The Doctor is helping me to help Elsa. She's in a lot of trouble right now. She is… living a nightmare and we need to wake her up. We are trying to find what… what made her angry."

"She did not look angry when she left" Osmine said thoughtfully. "Frightened, but not angry."

"That's the point. She's becoming angry and she should not be. She never was."

Osmine frowned.

"So, why did you come here?" the Doctor asked.

"I wanted to check if there was something in her Majesty's room that could have helped. I heard she remained locked in her room for the past years. Maybe she had something here that helped her keep her powers in check…"

The Doctor smiled.

"Good thinking" he said dryly. "Completely wrong, of course, but at least you tried." He brandished his sonic screwdriver again over the ice littering the room. "Feel free to keep looking. It's a sonic screwdriver" he added, as Osmine was opening her mouth.

"Actually I was about to ask what it is we should be looking for."

"Anything that looks like it should not be there." The Doctor looked at his screwdriver dubiously. "Now, where did I already see that?"

"There is something under the wardrobe" called Anna, who had been rummaging around the room. "It's… completely frozen… but I… think… I can… get it" she grunted as she reached under the large piece of furniture.

The princess brought back a small bundle of cloth covered in frost. She scratched at the fabric, peeling the ice, to reveal a little cloth doll held by a few very haphazardly sewn stitches.

"That's my doll…" Anna muttered.

"It's a nice doll" Osmine said encouragingly.

"I did it for Elsa when I was four… I wanted to imitate Mama… but…"

On an impulse, Anna pressed the button on the little radio.

"Elsa?"

" _Yes, Anna?"_ came Elsa's voice from the device. Osmine gasped.

"I don't know if you remember… the little cloth doll that I gave to you once…" Anna said, doing her best to sound nonchalant.

" _The cloth doll that you sewed yourself and gave me for my seventh birthday? Of course I remember! I showed you last winter that I still have it, don't you remember?"_

"What is… Is that… How does..." Osmine stuttered, looking from Anna to the Doctor.

"Where did you keep it… during all these years?"

" _In my jewellery box, just like when I showed it to you! Why?"_

"Sooo…. you never threw it under the wardrobe and covered it with frost?"

" _What?"_ came the indignant voice. _"I'd never have done that!"_

"Is that… Queen Elsa speaking?" Osmine asked suspiciously.

"No" the Doctor answered automatically, examining some ice scratched from the wall.

"Yes" Anna answered simultaneously. "Uh, no, no, actually no."

" _Who is that?"_ Elsa's disembodied voice asked.

"That's Osmine… She's helping us.

"There is something in the ice" the Doctor muttered suddenly, looking at his sonic screwdriver.

"Wait, what?"

Anna looked at him. The now almost entirely white-haired man was looking more distraught than she had ever seen him.

"Oh no. This is not good."

"What is it, Doctor?"

"This looks like something I've already seen… On your parent's ship… but also somewhere else… This ice…" He turned his head sharply toward Anna, his face a mask of concern. "I may be responsible for what is happening here."

"What? You mean, you are the one who made Elsa angry with me?"

" _I don't believe it"_ Elsa's voice said from the radio. Anna realised she had kept her finger on the button that let her sister hear them.

"This may be happening because of something I've done… But that's not possible! Even if something had remained, it could not have spread to your sister…"

The Doctor suddenly stood up, looking alarmed. "Both of you, come here" he intimated.

The Time Lord slowly rotated on himself, looking at the ice covered walls, still muttering to himself. Finally he smacked his head violently.

"Of course!" he shouted. "Stupid, stupid Doctor! Stupid to the power of twelve!" He turned to the two young women gathered around him. "It's in the ice now! It transferred itself to ice when your sister froze it! And then…" the Doctor gestured in the air, looking up and down, as if writing complex equations on an invisible blackboard while muttering to himself.

"Doctor! What is going on? Do you know what is going on here?" Anna asked.

"We leave. Now!" the Time Lord said urgently, pushing her and Osmine toward the door. He stopped and doubled over, clutching his chest. "Go!" he shouted, as his last strands of grey hair turned white.

Osmine gingerly crossed the threshold, looking back dubiously at the Doctor. Anna cast a concerned glance at the Time Lord.

"You are turning to ice because of the curse! You should find an act of true love!"

"Go now!" the Doctor shouted, straightening up and walking toward the door.

Ice cracked loudly.

Anna and the Doctor looked up to see frost forming on the wall and the ceiling near the door, reaching the hinges.

The door slammed violently closed. Anna jumped back with a little yelp of surprise. Behind the door came Osmine's surprised gasp.

"What is happening?" Anna shouted. "Elsa, is that you?" she asked to the radio.

" _What? No! Do you need help? Anna?"_

"Stay where you are!" the Doctor shouted. He ran his sonic screwdriver over the lock of the door. "Cl… Osmine! Can you hear us?"

"Can't you open it again?" Anna asked.

"It's completely frozen now" the Doctor muttered as frost now extended to cover most of the wall. They could hear Osmine's muffled shouts behind it.

"My dear Doctor" came a distinguished and sarcastic voice behind them. "So glad of you to have come here. I thought you would not make it."

Anna looked over her shoulder and gasped.

Ice in the room had coalesced to form the shape of a man, dressed in formal clothes and wearing a top hat, standing in the room behind them.

The Doctor turned slowly over himself.

"Hello, Doctor Simeon" he said dryly.

* * *

 **Author's Notes** : I confess that my initial reason for wanting the Doctor to be struck in the heart was to have him say the "I have a spare" line.

Elsa laying her hand on the Doctor's chest is probably the closest contact I will ever write them to have. I don't like to ship either of these characters.

Osmine is a Scandinavian name and apparently the female form of Osmund. It's the closest that I could find that sounded like Oswin.  
It is probably obvious that Osmine is supposed to look as if she was played by Jenna Coleman...


	8. The abominable ice man

The Doctor moved cautiously toward the man made of ice, gesturing to Anna to stay behind him.

"Or maybe you're called something else here" he went on looking at the man he had called Doctor Simeon. "Is it 'Great Interference' now? How about 'coward hidden inside the ice of a poor frightened girl'? "

The ice man smiled humourlessly.

"How good of you to remember so much of me, dear Doctor. And how lucky you are that I managed to remember so much about me as well, otherwise all those barbs of yours would have fallen on deaf ears."

"And what do you remember, exactly?"

"That I wanted to destroy you. To turn all of your victories into defeats. In every point of your insufferably long existence. And that I will exist, at various points of your timeline, to do that." The ice man spread his hands. "Here is how I exist in this point."

"Good" the Doctor said harshly. "Then you know that you've failed." He strode toward Simeon. "As you can see, I'm still alive, despite all your attempts. So how about you try to show some actual intelligence for once? Recognise that you are beaten and leave."

Simeon smiled.

"Why would I leave, my dear Doctor? I'm in the ice now, where you and this little girl tried to trap me all those years ago."

"It was you, on the ship..." the Doctor said in a half-realising, half-accusatory tone. "The very early you. That's where you learned to control snow…"

"Yes. But I came back here as I was following your timeline, and then I did much more that controlling snow." Simeon paused. "I controlled the snow maker."

"Is he talking about… Elsa?" Anna asked timidly from behind the Doctor's back.

"Yes, stupid child" Simeon answered mockingly, "Elsa. I spent years in her room, spreading to every ice she created, influencing her, talking to her…"

"And failing" the Doctor cut sharply.

"Did I?" Simeon asked mockingly. "Is that some of her ice that I feel in your chest now, my dear Doctor? Now tell me, why would she do that if I did not tell her to?"

"Because she's frightened!" Anna shouted. "And she does know how to stop it! She did not do it on purpose."

"You should know that if you really controlled her" the Doctor said forcefully. "But you don't really control her, do you? Oh yes, you made her pick a fight with Freckles. That's quite an achievement for you probably. But let me break it down to you, it does not mean that you control her, and more importantly, it does not mean that you control her powers! You are just what you always were, a parasite, feeding on the fears and insecurities of others!"

"I control enough of her powers to kill you, Doctor!" Simeon shouted with sudden anger. "You said all my echoes have failed, Doctor, but I only have to succeed once, you know." He smiled, his self-control returning. "Maybe this is where I do."

With a sinister creaking, ice spikes began growing on the wall.

* * *

Hunched over the console of the TARDIS, Elsa listened wordlessly to the conversation that echoed in the room, Anna having apparently kept pressing the button that allowed her to hear them. She was trying to make sense of it when she suddenly realised something else.

She was sure she had never heard the low voice of this man the Doctor called Doctor Simeon.

But now she was equally sure that she remembered listening to it.

* * *

The Doctor slowly circled around the room, keeping Anna behind him.

"That's nothing compared to her powers!" he said defiantly. "This is a simple controlled deposition. What is this compared to freezing a whole country? You were able to do much more the first time I met you."

"I don't need to freeze a country to kill you, Doctor" Simeon said, as spikes kept extending toward the centre of the room.

The window unexpectedly exploded inwards, shards of glass flying inside the room along with a cold gust of wind. Anna and the Doctor crouched reflexively.

"This way!" came a shout from outside.

"That's Osmine!" Anna shouted happily.

Jumping to her feet, she ran toward the window, dodging the spikes that were still trying to expand toward her. As she neared it, she saw Osmine's head quickly zoom sideways.

"I'm coming baaack" came her diminishing voice.

Trying to avoid the shards of glass still embedded in the windowsill, Anna leaned on it to look out of the window. Osmine was nowhere to be seen.

"Over here!" came a distant shout.

Anna turned her head. The dark-haired woman was perched on the little scaffolding that was suspended from the highest tower of the castle, and using it as a swing. She had extended the rope almost to its maximum, and was coming back in a long arc.

The Doctor appeared behind her and laughed.

"Great work, Osmine!" he shouted. "Get ready to jump" he said casually to Anna.

"Jump? Jump when? Jump where?"

"Jump now!"

The Doctor crossed over the windowsill and jumped down, dragging a screaming Anna behind him. His timing proved to be perfect: both of them landed squarely on the plank just as it passed under them. The landing itself was less perfect, though, as all three occupants of the little scaffolding struggled to keep their balance as the wooden plank began twisting and turning under their combined weight and momentum. Each of them began shouting contradictory orders to the others two.

Eventually the scaffolding hit a snow covered roof and dropped its three occupants on the white powder, where they began a long sliding descent from one snowy roof to another that ended up unceremoniously on the cobblestones of the courtyard.

For a few seconds there was only various grunts and groans from the heap. Then the Doctor disentangled himself and stood up, brushing his jacket.

"Well done, Clara" he said sternly. "I mean, Osmine. Quick thinking. Now go away."

"What?" The young woman was slowly standing up, helping Anna on her feet.

"You heard me. Go away. Go help people somewhere else. Bring them soup, or blankets, or teach them something about paintings." He leaned toward her. "The Fragonard is a copy" he whispered conspiratorially.

Osmine brushed the snow from her dress and looked defiantly at the Doctor.

"I'm not leaving before you explain to me what was going on in there. Was it you who closed the door? It was covered of frost in the corridor!" She paused. "Was there someone in there with the same powers as the Queen?"

"No. Yes. Not entirely. Listen, this is dangerous. You should not remain here…"

"Then if it is dangerous I will leave with Princess Anna. She should not be exposed to danger, don't you think?" Osmine asked snidely.

Anna, who had been patting frantically the snow where they had landed, stood up with a little cry of triumph, brandishing the little radio.

"Elsa? Do you hear me?" she asked to the device. It let out a hiss of static.

"Elsa?" Anna shook the radio. "Elsa, we are all right! If your hear me, please answer!" She turned to the Doctor. "It's not working any more! I broke it!"

"What? It should not be…" the Doctor stopped and looked above them. "Run!" he shouted.

"Wait, what? Elsa is not answering, she..."

Osmine and the Doctor each grabbed a wrist of the princess and lunged forward. A few seconds later, a large wad of snow and ice fell on the ground where they had been standing. Ice erupted from it, coalescing into the form of Doctor Simeon.

"You can't escape me, Doctor" he shouted after them. "I'm everywhere!"

* * *

"Where are we going?" Osmine shouted to the Doctor as they rushed to a door leading inside the castle.

"You can let go of my wrists now, I can run by myself" Anna protested.

The Doctor yanked the door open and let the two girls inside. He stood a few seconds on the threshold, looking at the stalactites of ice slowly erupting from the snow on the ground around him, before slamming the door and activating the sonic screwdriver on the lock.

"We have to go to the TARDIS" he told them.

"What is a TARDIS?" Osmine asked.

Anna was still shaking the little radio. "Elsa? Elsa, do you hear me?"

"Run! Now!" the Doctor intimated, as little shards of frost began forming around the door hinges.

The three of them began running along the mercifully empty corridors toward the remote gallery where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS.

"Doctor! What is happening?" Anna asked, panting as they climbed stairs. "Who was this… ice man? Was he the one who made Elsa become angry with me?"

"Yes!" the Doctor shouted. "He's an old enemy of mine. I'm sorry you were brought into this. And you were right!"

"About what?"

"This timeline is the wrong one, not yours! He's the one who interfered!"

"I told you so!"

They turned round a corner and came to a screeching halt. A wall of ice was blocking the door. A large stalagmite of ice was slowly growing in front of it and turning into Simeon.

"This way!" Anna shouted instantly, pointing to a branching gallery.

"What is happening? Did someone steal Queen Elsa's powers?" Osmine asked.

"No, someone made her think he has!" the Doctor panted back.

Anna skidded to a halt. Another wall of ice was blocking the end of the gallery where they had been running. The face of Simeon could be seen appearing in the ice.

"Over there!" she shouted, backtracking.

"This will lead us to the heated areas of the castle!" the Doctor warned.

"What's wrong with that?" Osmine said, with more difficulty as the running was taking its toll on her breathing. "I could use heat! Especially if we are fighting someone who controls ice!"

"That's where people are!"

"And what's wrong with that too?"

Anna stopped and turned into a branching gallery as another wall of ice blocked their way. She attempted to pull back her cowl, but the speed quickly put it back. She kept her head down as they zoomed past a couple of servants carrying blankets who looked at them with puzzlement.

"Your Highness?" one of them shouted incredulously.

"It's not me! I mean, not her!" Anna shouted back.

"Definitely not any highnesses you could know of!" the Doctor confirmed as they disappeared around a corner.

The air was getting warmer. Voices and steps could be heard echoing in the nearby corridors.

"Stop" the Doctor panted. "We are getting too close."

He turned to a door and worked the sonic screwdriver on the handle as the voices were getting closer. The Doctor quickly glanced inside the room. A fire was burning in the fireplace and no one was present.

"In here!"

The sonic screwdriver whistled as the Doctor locked the door behind them. Both girls doubled over, trying to catch their breath.

"This should hold it back for a while" the Doctor panted. He grunted, grimacing. Looking up, Anna thought she saw icicles forming on his bushy eyebrows.

"I'm all right!" he said as he caught her eye, striding toward the fireplace. "We need a plan."

Anna looked around and shivered. She recognised this room, and seeing the Doctor trying to warm his hands near the fireplace brought back a painful memory. She had also done that in this very room, one year ago… and tomorrow.

"Doctor, you are going to freeze!" she said, moving quickly to his side. "You need an act of…"

"Give me that radio", the Doctor said, taking the device from her unresisting hands. He briefly passed the sonic screwdriver over it. "It's still working. The problem is on your sister's side."

"You mean she can't hear us?"

"Maybe. Or maybe she's simply not answering us." He raised the radio near his lips. "Platinum? Elsa? If you're still there, answer us."

"Please, Elsa! If you hear me, answer me, please! Is something wrong?" Anna paused and looked at the Doctor, smiling. "Hey, you called her Elsa. I thought you did not remember our names."

* * *

The voices were echoing in the console room. Huddled in a pool of ice near the railing that circled around the large console, Elsa shivered and considered for a second jamming her fingers in her ears. But she knew it never worked. She had tried it when her _stupid_ dear little sister had been calling her from behind the door, _little pest_ poor lonely Anna trying to reach out to her during all these years.

" _Elsa! Please! Elsa! We need your help. We need her help, right, Doctor?"_

" _Maybe. Platinum, this is serious. If you're afraid of something, you should have learned by now that it's useless to hide."_

" _You know"_ came a third voice, affecting a matter-of-fact tone, _"I think that if neither of you gives me a detailed explanation of what has been happening around here, I may begin hitting both of you with this poker."_

 _"No you won't. Platinum, if you hear us, make sure that the third switch at the right of the red button is raised, and that the middle red knob to the right is switched up. There should be a red blinking light on its side. If not, step to the right side of the console, near the loudspeaker, and unplug the…"_

"I'm here" Elsa said in a weary voice.

" _Elsa!"_ Anna's voice radiated relief. _"What was happening?"_

"I'm remembering, Doctor" Elsa said flatly, desperately trying to contain the tears out of her voice.

" _Remembering? Remembering what? Doctor, what is she remembering? Elsa, what are you remembering?"_

"The voice. The voice in the ice. I never heard it, but I remember it." Elsa paused, digging her nails into the palm of her hands. Something beeped behind her as little stalactites of ice fell from the railing. "I remember being angry with you, Anna."

" _What? But that can't be possible! The Doctor told me this is the wrong line of time, Elsa! We are the right ones! Like I told him! You are not the angry Elsa!"_

"That's not the point, you stup…" Elsa bit her lip until she tasted blood. "The Doctor said I would become the other Elsa, whether I was the right one or not. It's beginning." She breathed, her vision blurry with tears. "I was about to yell at you, Anna. To call you stupid."

" _You are right"_ came the Doctor's solemn voice.

" _Wait, what?"_

" _Your sister is right. The paradox is resolving itself. Whether this was the modified timeline or not, this is the one we are in now, and she's becoming the local Platinum. The one who had Doctor Simeon, or the Great Intelligence, slowly affecting her mind for all these years."_ The Doctor paused, and Elsa thought she heard a muffled whimper of pain through the receiver before he resumed. _"He's the one who changed the timeline."_

" _Who is this man, anyway?"_

" _That's what I'm also interested to know"_ came the unknown voice. Elsa frowned, briefly wondering if she had not heard this voice before, but right now she was far too afraid of what her memories contained to dig into it.

" _It's… an entity, that I fought a few times. In the end, he jumped into my timeline, and was broken into echoes of himself spread all over my life."_ There was a short pause. _"I don't expect you to understand, actually."_

Elsa thought about this a few seconds.

"You mean that he appears at various points in your life, like you did when we were young?"

" _Not quite. It's a different individual each time. And I have a very long life, so that makes a lot of them."_

"And what does he do?"

" _He tries to kill me. Each of them remembers enough of who they were to know what they should do."_

" _But you managed to escape him each time?"_ This was the unknown voice. The Doctor paused longer before answering. When he did, his voice was uncharacteristically emotional.

" _Yes. I had… help. But this version is dangerous"_ he went on quickly. _"You see… apparently, the homicidal consciousness that was on your parents' ship was a very early version of him. Some part of him managed to remain in the ice of the chair your froze in your room, Platinum. Maybe that's how its_ _first iteration reached England… but now it's different. The echo sent here apparently merged with its past self. This made him much more dangerous."_

"The ice… whispered to me. I remember…" Elsa muttered, feeling another wave of dread wash over her. Snowflakes began falling on the floor of the console room.

" _Do you remember anything else?"_ came the Doctor's inquisitive voice.

" _She can't, Doctor! She's not this Elsa!"_ Anna shouted.

" _You're right. She's an anomaly. She will soon disappear anyway."_

" _Don't say that!"_

A series of unidentified sounds came from the console, accompanied with Anna's shouts. Eventually, they receded, to be replaced by what Elsa thought was the sound of someone sobbing.

" _You know, trying to hit me won't change anything"_ came the Doctor's calm but slightly offended voice.

"Doctor? Will Anna disappear as well?" Elsa asked as softly as she could, wondering how loud this would be heard on the other side.

" _I don't know"_ the Doctor answered. _"Your sister's past has not been altered. She may have boarded the TARDIS with me even in this timeline, so she could be there. Her memories will adjust after a while, but they will only concern her past year. And since it has not happened yet, it will take more time."_

" _OK, that's it"_ came the third voice. _"Who are you all exactly? Is that really Queen Elsa talking in this little box? And how do you stop everything that's happening?"_

" _I'm the Doctor, she's Freckles from your future. Yes. I don't know."_

" _What?"_

" _We are not from… now, Osmine"_ came Anna's tearful voice. _"Elsa and I come from next year. The Doctor has a wonderful machine that can travel in time. And… this man of ice, this Simeon… he changed Elsa. He made her angry."_

" _So that's why she froze the country?"_

" _No. She already did it. And she was not angry, just frightened. But now… she's angry. Because he spoke to her… before now?"_

" _Don't forget that he's also in every ice she creates"_ the Doctor said. _"Given that we are now in winter, this could be a problem."_ He paused. _"In every ice she creates…"_ he added in a pensive tone.

"Doctor?" Elsa asked. "Is there some way… some way I could not change? Not disappear?"

" _No. There is not. You will disappear if Angry Platinum is not changed back to someone who could become you. The TARDIS will delay it, but your memories will keep changing._ " The Doctor paused. _"Try to hold on the right memories. This may help you."_

"How can I know they are the right memories?"

" _They are those where you are not angry with me, Elsa"_ came Anna's voice. _"When we were playing together when we were little. Building Olaf. Having fun in the snow. When we…"_

She was interrupted by Osmine shouting. _"The window!"_

" _Oh no, no, no…"_ the Doctor said frantically.

There was a sound of creaking wood and wind blowing.

" _Did you really think a chimney fire could keep me out for long?"_ Elsa shivered at hearing once again the simultaneously familiar and unknown voice, but even more at the menace she heard through it.

"Anna!" she shouted. "Get out! He will harm you! He hates you!"

" _Oh, what do we have here?"_ came the sarcastic voice. _"Was that Elsa's voice coming from that box? Is that one of your trinkets, Doctor? Don't bother trying to open this door, by the way, the lock is frozen now. Now let me settle this…"_

There was a scream, and a loud crackling sound coming from the speakers in the console, followed by a hiss.

Silence fell in the console room.


	9. Run away, my clever sister

"Elsa!" Anna shouted, as the little radio in her hand erupted with little shards of ice before shattering.

"As you see, I'm gaining more control of Elsa's powers by the second" Simeon said smugly.

"No you're not" the Doctor said, striding back from the door to the ice man standing in front of the open window. "If anything, this shows even less control. Localised cold temperature is easier to do than an ice spike, as is the gust of wind with which you opened the window." He looked at his sonic screwdriver.

"This was enough for breaking into the room where you thought you were safely barricaded, Doctor."

"We did not think we were safely barricaded" the Doctor shot back, fidgeting with his screwdriver.

"I thought we were" Osmine said. "I hoped so anyway. You said so."

She yanked a firebrand from the fire and held it in the direction of the advancing ice man.

"Stop here! Or I will melt you!" she shouted.

Simeon sniggered.

"Do you think this weak flame could stop me? Unless you are prepared to melt all of ice in Arendelle with it…"

"He's right about that point at least" the Doctor said. "It would take far too long."

Anna tugged nervously at her cape, and felt an unexpected weight. Her hand closed on the object and recognised the shape of Strax's strange "lesser gun" through the fabric.

"And actually", the Doctor went on, looking up right at her as if he had been reading her mind, "even if it could melt him in a few seconds, that would not work either. He would simply have to jump to any nearby ice."

"I control the ice!"

"If anything, I think whatever control he had is waning" the Doctor said, ignoring him. The screwdriver whistled a few times with different tones. "He is trapped in the ice, with a very minor control of it. It's simply lucky for him there is so much of it around."

"Who needs controlling the ice when you control the icemaker?"

"You can't control Elsa!" Anna shouted. "You can make her angry, but you can't control her! She's stronger than you think!"

"And how strong do you think she will be when the news of her sister's death reach her? I'm not talking about you" he added, as Anna tensed and looked at him defiantly while Osmine tried to step between the princess and him. "You are probably here thanks to one of the Doctor's tricks. I'm talking about the Anna who is now lost in the mountains, and whose heart contains a sliver of ice. I can feel it."

Anna opened her mouth to answer, caught the Doctor's eye, and slowly closed it. The Time Lord was still playing with his sonic screwdriver.

Simeon picked up a piece from the chessboard and looked at it derisively.

"You have only delayed the inevitable in the castle. The news of her sister's death, by her own hand, will crush Elsa. And I will be there, ready to fill the void in her soul." He slammed the piece back on the chessboard. "And I'll fill it with me. I'll control the queen."

He turned back to the Doctor, who was tapping the side of the sonic screwdriver. "But before that, I will kill you, Doctor. Or maybe I will let you live just long enough to see this lovely queen become the instrument of my vengeance. What do you say about that, Doctor?"

The Doctor raised his head.

"I'm sorry, I was not listening. I was trying to find the antifreeze feature I had installed on the sonic screwdriver the last time I met you. I should really clean its memory from time to time" He smiled triumphantly. "I'm not quite sure it still works, do you have an idea how to test it?"

The Doctor pointed the whistling sonic screwdriver at the ice man, who shrieked as he instantly melted into a puddle on the floor.

* * *

"Anna? Doctor? Someone?"

Elsa stopped shouting as her throat became sore. She looked at the console, trying to remember what the Doctor had done to make the device work in the first place, and what he had been saying she should do if they stopped hearing her. She gingerly tried pressing a few buttons, but was rewarded only by some metallic beeps.

"Anna? Please, if you hear me, answer me… What is going on?"

Snow was now falling in the console room. There had been a whirring somewhere and a warm wind had begun blowing in the room, but it had not been strong enough to melt the thin layer of snow that was forming on the floor along with the occasional patch of ice.

Elsa tried to calm herself, but could not remove from her mind the thought that Anna was now in the presence of… something that had done its best to make her hate her sister. It had not only been her sister, actually: the voice in the ice had apparently tried to push her to hate everyone but herself, as far as she could judge by the flashes of memory she was getting more and more frequently now. But since Anna was the person for whom she cared the most, the voice, this Simeon, as the Doctor had called it, had focused its efforts on Elsa's love for her sister.

"Anna? If you can hear me in any way… Please answer me…"

Silence remained in the room, only troubled by the various distant beeps and mechanical sounds of the TARDIS. Elsa leaned on the console. Finally she raised her head and looked at the speaker from which her sister's voice used to be heard.

"Fine. I'm coming for you, Anna."

Turning around, Elsa strode toward the TARDIS doors.

* * *

"But you destroyed him, right? Why do we have to hurry?"

"I did not destroy him. I merely thawed extremely quickly the ice where he was manifesting." The Doctor walked quickly in the corridors of the castle, followed by the two young women. "It was quick enough that he did not have time to get ready for it, unlike anything else you could have tried. That was the equivalent of a sucker punch for him, but he will recover soon enough. Which is why we have to hurry to the TARDIS."

"Can't you thaw him again?"

"Last time I used this program, it worked only the first time. I'm not taking chances."

"What is this TARDIS?" Osmine asked.

"It's a wonderful machine that belongs to the Doctor" Anna answered. "It looks like a little blue box, but inside it's… huge. With plenty of rooms. And the Doctor says it can travel anywhere."

"It does" the Doctor said. "And don't forget it can travel in time as well."

"I always dreamed of travelling…" Osmine said dreamily.

"Then I can drop you somewhere to begin your journey if you want. Anywhere you want."

"Can I choose somewhere amazing?"

"I would not accept any other choice from you."

The Doctor winced. Anna looked at him. There was definitely ice forming on his face.

"It will be quicker that way, Doctor" she said, showing a staircase. "It's right down these steps."

"Fine." The Doctor stopped and leaned against a wall. "Go to the TARDIS. I'll join you there. Here" he added, reaching into his coat, "take the key. And don't lose it!"

"Wait, what? Where are you going?"

"Just… following you. Stop discussing, go! Your sister needs you."

"But, Doctor… we can't leave you there. You said the… bad ice man would catch up with us soon. And you are about to turn into ice. I know, it happened to me!"

"Stop being so human! I'm telling you I'll join you!"

"But what if the ice man gets to you?"

"Or us" Osmine said.

"Yes! Maybe your antifreeze would work a second time. If it attacks us…"

"It's me it's after! I'm telling you two to go now! In the TARDIS!" the Doctor shouted.

"But… what are you going to do?"

"Die" came Simeon's voice.

Anna gasped, while the Doctor looked at her with a weary and reproachful expression. Ice creaked around them. Osmine turned her head to see the staircase slowly fill with ice spikes.

"But you can die too, if you want" Simeon went on, coalescing near the wall. "Having her sister die twice that day would break the icemaker even more."

* * *

Elsa put her hand on the door handle, hesitated a second, and turned it.

The door was locked.

"No!"

The queen desperately shook the handle, slamming the door with her hand.

"No! Why is it locked?! Unlock yourself! I want to go out!"

There was a sizzling sound behind her. She turned around and gasped.

The Doctor had appeared near the console. He was slightly transparent, and occasionally shimmering. He was facing another equally ghost-like Elsa.

" _The TARDIS is protecting you for now"_ the apparition said, in a crackling voice that sounded like the Doctor speaking through the radio device. _"If you go out, your timeline will realign with the one outside. Your memories will merge with your current counterpart, and you will_ _eventually disappear, as she probably never travelled with me in the first time. Do you understand?"_

" _Yes, Doctor"_ the ghost Elsa answered.

"I don't care!" Elsa shouted. "My memories are already changing! I want to go and help my sister!"

" _If you leave the TARDIS, you will cease to exist"_ the ghost Doctor went on. _"The year your sister was talking about will never have happened for you. Is that understood?"_

" _Yes, Doctor"_ the shimmering Elsa repeated.

Elsa strode to the console until she was level with the two ghosts.

"I don't care if I disappear, as long as I can help my sister! That's my choice to make!" she shouted.

" _If you leave the TARDIS, you will cease to exist"_ the ghost Doctor repeated.

Elsa gingerly reached out and tried touching the shimmering image. Her hand went through it as if nothing was there.

"I know the risks! I'm ready to face them if it can help my sister!"

The image of the Doctor shimmered. _"If you leave the TARDIS, you will cease to exist"_ it repeated again.

Elsa turned her head to look at the central column.

"Is that you doing this, machine?"

The ghostly Doctor suddenly changed position. _"The TARDIS is protecting you for now"_ it said again.

Elsa walked to the console.

"OK, machine. Anna says you are alive, so maybe you can understand me. I want to go out and help my sister. I know that you are protecting me, and that if I go out I will disappear even sooner. But I don't care about that! I want to help Anna!"

" _You will cease to exist"_ the image of the Doctor said once more.

Elsa banged her fist on the console, immediately regretting it.

"Listen to me, machine" she said, trying to ignore the sharp pain searing through her hand. "If you can understand what I'm saying… I want to save my sister. She's in danger, and I want to help her, even if that's the last thing I do."

" _If you go out"_ the ghostly Doctor shimmered, abruptly changing his posture _"your memories will merge with your current counterpart"_ it finished.

"I want to help my sister. Do you know what it's like to have a sister, machine? It's… someone who is part of you. Someone who you love more than you could ever love somebody else. Someone who you saw growing up while you yourself were growing up. The first years of your life… the most important… you lived them with her, and she lived them with you. Well, some of them anyway because I was too afraid to open up to her… But still… I knew her as a baby, she knew me as a little girl. I still remember how small she was in her crib, even if I was not very big myself at the time. She's a part of me." Elsa breathed deeply, ignoring her wet cheeks. "She was ready to give her life for me, she gave it actually. I'm ready to give my existence for her."

The ghostly Doctor and Elsa both disappeared. Then her own image reappeared a few feet from her, huddled near the railing as she had been moments ago.

" _I remember being angry with you, Anna"_ it said, in this slightly metallic voice everyone had when talking through the radio. AA was right, hearing one's own voice really was strange.

Elsa looked at the column protruding from the console.

"I know that" she said softly. "But if I can't do anything about it… at least I can try to help Anna one last time… My little baby Anna… How small she was in her crib… I'll always remember that…"

Elsa stopped suddenly. She concentrated on her memories. Her time locked behind her door was now a blur of conflicting remembrances, torn between anger and despair, with the voice of her sister calling out to her now mingling with the whispering of the ice. But her other memories were still clear. She focused on them, remembering baby Anna, little girl Anna playing with her in the snow…

"I still remember that" she muttered. "Baby Anna. Even if I remember everything this ice man whispered to me… I still remember that. He did not change that."

Elsa looked at the column again, a faint smile on her lips.

"I still remember that!" she said, hope creeping into her voice. "And it's not changing! If I can remember that, maybe the other Elsa can also remember it! That's what the Doctor meant when he said I should hold on the right memories, right?" She looked at the immobile column, then at her image, huddled near the railing. "If I can't help becoming this other Elsa, maybe I can help her becoming me again…"

Elsa slowly turned around, her eyes unfocused.

"The ice man made me throw away Anna's doll… I think I remember that. He did not want me to remember little Anna… our time together. Maybe that's the key. We have to tell her that…"

She paced nervously in the direction of her shimmering image before turning back.

"I have to warn Anna to tell her…" Elsa looked up thoughtfully at the ceiling with its strange intertwined circles. "Please, machine. If you can remember everything that people do and say and make it appear again, like you did… You have to tell them that. Tell my sister she needs to tell myself to remember about our youth. Of everything that happened before the accident. If I disappear when I leave… she will still know what to do."

Elsa stepped back from the console.

"Please, if I can help her come back inside and I'm not… there… just repeat what I said. She will know what I'm talking about. She needs to tell..." Elsa stopped, whirling around herself. "No, wait, that's not right. I can't ask Anna to speak with… the other me. She's so angry with her, she could… No, Anna must not come near her…" Elsa looked up. "Maybe the Doctor could do it?" She searched her memories. "The Doctor, the Doctor… No! I also remember having to hate him…"

Elsa slowly turned round to face the console again. Resolve slowly set on her face.

"I have to do it myself. I must talk with… her. Me."

She looked up at the central column.

"Please, machine. Let me do this. I need to talk with my other self. I don't know if I can reach her before disappearing, but I must do it, if it's the last thing I do. Please."

There was another sizzling sound behind her.

" _If you leave the TARDIS, you will cease to exist"_ the Doctor's voice said.

"I know" Elsa said. She breathed deeply. "But maybe not instantly. Maybe I'll have time to reach my other self. Or simply help Anna come back safely in here. Just… If she does, could you please say this to her?"

Elsa turned around, looking in the distance, trying to imagine Anna in front of her.

"Hello Anna. I hope this works. I don't know if I'm still around… Maybe I'm with you just now and I'm feeling silly… But if I'm not there, if you did not see me… I went trying to tell the other Elsa about our past together. Before the accident. The voice in the ice did not change those memories, it wanted me to forget them… That's how I could stop being angry with you. If I'm not there, I probably disappeared… Someone has to tell her that. Not you, she's too dangerous, really dangerous for you, much more than I ever was. And the Doctor. Maybe this other woman who was with you? She must not know her. I'm… I'm going now. Maybe see you again, as myself. I hope."

Elsa turned back to the console.

"Please, machine, let me go out this time. I want to help my sister… And the Doctor as well. He was struck by the other me, if I can stop her maybe she could… save him. He will freeze otherwise."

Elsa slowly walked toward the door.

" _If you leave the TARDIS, you will cease to exist"_ the Doctor's voice said once again behind her.

"I'm ready for that."

There was another sizzling sound. The ghostly Doctor appeared hunched in front of her, his eyes boring on her under his thick eyebrows.

 _"Now, please answer me truthfully. Do you really mean what you said?"_ he said.

"Yes" Elsa said, smiling.

A mechanical whirring suddenly erupted from the console. Then a noise she had come to know very well echoed in the room.

"No!" she yelled, turning round. "No, please! Please, machine! Don't take me away! I want to help my sister! Please!"

Elsa ran to the console, desperately trying to switch random levers and hit some buttons. The central column was rising and falling rhythmically as the sound of the TARDIS engines filled the room.

"No! Please! Don't leave my sister here! Stop! Don't move! Or take me to her! Please!"

The sound receded. The column ceased moving.

Elsa heard a click behind her.

The queen turned around and slowly walked up to the doors.

"Where did you take me?" she muttered.

She gingerly laid a hand on the doorknob and turned. The door opened. Elsa looked outside.

Her ice palace stood glittering under the starlight.

She slowly turned back to the console.

"Thank you" she muttered. "Thank you, TARDIS. Sorry for calling you a machine."

The queen slowly stepped out of the TARDIS, steadying herself as a wave of dizziness swept over her. She concentrated on the memories of her first years.

Then she began walking toward the castle, trying to keep her eyes focused on it and muttering words under her breath like a mantra.

"Anna in her crib… Anna in her crib… Anna in her crib."

Behind her, the sound of the TARDIS disappearing echoed loudly in the silence of the mountains. She did not paid attention to it as she headed for the most important conversation in her life.

Even if, technically, it would be a monologue.

* * *

The Great Intelligence slowly walked toward the little group, smiling mockingly.

"Doctor! Try the antifreeze thing!" Anna whispered.

The Doctor brandished his sonic screwdriver. It whistled, but Simeon kept advancing.

The Doctor shivered. Ice formed on his hand. He slowly slid to the ground, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Leave me. Now" he intimated in a low voice. "Lead Osmine to the TARDIS, you can find another route."

"I'm not leaving you here, Doctor!"

Anna looked around frantically. She rushed to an old crest on the wall, and desperately struggled to remove one of the swords embedded in it. The blade gave in eventually, snapping neatly a few inches above the hilt.

"Step back" Anna shouted, brandishing the broken sword in front of the advancing ice man.

"Don't do that, Anna, Your Highness" Osmine shouted. "It'll kill you!"

"Not leaving the Doctor" Anna answered through clenched teeth.

"Fine!"

Osmine jumped to the crest and struggled to remove the other sword. Her efforts were rewarded with a slightly longer stump of broken sword above the hilt.

"You heard the Princess" she said defiantly. "Step back!"

"Oh for the love of…"

The Doctor slowly stood up, clutching at his chest.

"I told you to go away" he said in a hoarse voice.

"I'm not leaving people behind!" Anna said.

"And you promised me to drop me somewhere amazing" Osmine added.

"How touching" Simeon said mockingly. Ice spikes began growing on the walls. "So I'll kill each of you, then."

"You really don't hold much of a power, do you" the Doctor asked, leaning against the wall. "You could have killed us everywhere in the castle if you really controlled any ice created by Platinum."

"I can control every ice she creates!"

"Do you need to gloat that badly that you have to appear everywhere you control ice? Or is it simply that you can't control anything until there is enough of your consciousness around to do the controlling? Because you could have created those spikes" he pointed to the advancing shards "any time you wanted. It's not as if we never stood near some ice since we've been there."

"I am in every ice she creates! I can feel anything the ice feels! And I can talk to her!"

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Anna whispered. She raised her sword stump as one of the spikes drew closer to them.

"That's very interesting" the Doctor said, ignoring her. "And I suppose your feeling increases when you are closer?"

The spike closed on the Doctor. Anna stepped forward and clanged her sword against it, neatly snapping the ice. Simeon winced.

"Thanks for helping me prove my point, Anna" the Doctor said softly. "So… you can probably feel this, then."

The Doctor closed his eyes and grimaced.

Simeon yelled and stepped back.

"What are you doing?" he screamed. "Stop this!" Water began to run along him. "I order you to stop!" he shouted, as he began to visibly melt.

"How are you doing that, Doctor?" Anna asked, puzzled.

"I can regulate my internal body temperature" the Doctor answered through clenched teeth. "So right now, I'm burning with a fever. And I just happen to have a little shard of ice in my heart."

"I understand!" Osmine said. "Since you said he feels what the ice feels… you are burning him." She paused and looked thoughtful. "How on Earth can you change your body temperature?!"

Anna looked dubiously at the slowly melting Simeon.

"Does that count as an act of true love?" she asked.

"Apparently not" the Doctor muttered. "This ice transmits the heat, but does not thaw. Did I mention it's also spreading faster through me now?"

The Doctor doubled back, grunting in pain.

"We have to move" Anna said, dropping her sword and grabbing his arm. She recoiled. "Ouch! You really are burning!"

"Not enough" the Doctor muttered. "I have to stop that. Go to the TARDIS, now. "

"No" Anna said simply, bracing herself and helping the Doctor on his feet. "Come, Osmine" she said, grunting under the effort.

"Go first" the dark haired woman answered, picking up Anna's discarded sword stump and facing the lump of ice that was trying to regain Simeon's shape. "I'll cover you."

Anna and the Doctor hobbled toward the staircase, with Osmine slowly walking backward behind them.

"Are you getting cooler?" Anna asked, as she helped the Doctor climbing down the stairs.

"Yes. I told you I can't hold this for long. Which means…"

With a crinkling sound, ice began to form on the Time Lord's face and hands. Anna looked around desperately as they descended the staircase, with Osmine following them a few steps above, her broken swords raised defensively.

"We have to find you an act of true love… The TARDIS!" she exclaimed. "You said you always travel with her… Maybe that counts as a family? Do you think that would be true love?"

"What are you suggesting?" the Doctor grunted, not hiding the sarcasm in his voice. "That I should kiss my time machine so that I stop freezing?"

"I don't know, maybe you could… she could… if she… do you know…" Anna bit her lip, frantically racking her brain. She helped the Doctor on the last step. They now were in a small antechamber. The princess pointed to a door. "She's right behind that door" she said. She looked at the Doctor. "Don't you have another power that could help you?" she asked. "You said you had a way out, can you take it now?"

"You never give up, don't you?" the Doctor said, smiling unexpectedly. Anna thought she saw a curious orange light glow under his skin for a second. "It's not time yet" he added.

"But you are going to turn to ice any second now! I know how it worked, it happened to me! Will it still be time when it's too late?"

"No. Go to the TARDIS with Osmine, now."

"You can barely stand! How will you reach it?"

A yell from Osmine interrupted whatever answer the Doctor was about to give. They turned to see Simeon standing in the room, mere meters from them.

"Enough games" he said dryly. "You die, now."

The hands of the ice man changed, becoming long spikes of ice.

"Run!"

Osmine jumped in front of him, shielding Anna and the Doctor with her body, her swords stumps raised defensively.

"I'll hold him off! If you have a way to leave this place, run away, now!" she shouted.

"But… I can't… Osmine! Doctor! I can't leave..."

"You heard her" the Doctor muttered in a hoarse voice.

Simeon swung one of his blades. Osmine braced herself and blocked the blow with one of her sword stumps. It was knocked out of her hands and clattered against the wall.

"Run away, now!" she shouted over her shoulder, as Simeon swung his other blade. "Run away, you clever…"

"Sorry" the Doctor said. "Not this time."

The Time Lord grabbed Osmine by the shoulders and pushed her away, stepping in front of the ice blade that plunged neatly into his chest.

* * *

 **Authors' Notes:** The TARDIS has a holographic interface with which it can interact with people, but I found more interesting to have it use pieces of earlier conversations.

I don't remember the Doctor stating that he can control his temperature, but given the vast range of things Time Lords have been shown to do (like surviving in the vacuum for some time, for instance), that particular one did not feel to far-fetched to me.


	10. and remember me

Elsa looked at the walls of the palace around her, her light blue dress rustling as she walked. The ice that had felt so comforting when she had created it was now creaking ominously, taking a darker, red tint. And it was silent.

Elsa could not remember precisely when her ice had begun talking to her. She had been practising a little in her lonely room, trying to build miniature ice castles that would not look too misshapen, and she had heard the whispers. At first she had been thinking she was dreaming it, or imagining it. She had even considered the possibility that Anna was playing a prank on her. Or maybe that she was simply interpreting the wind blowing outside as whispers.

Then she had begun making out the words.

She had thought for a while that she was going mad. She had not dared talking about it to her father.

She had eventually answered them. And they had answered back.

So she listened to them. They felt good to hear, at first. They told her she was not alone, that ice would be there for her. Forever.

She basked in the comfort the whispers gave her. They drowned out the voice of her sister calling out to her from the other side of the door. She was relieved of that. She was relieved when the whispers told her it was OK to be relieved.

They went silent the day Kai spoke to her through the door, talking about the disappeared ship carrying her parents. But they resumed soon after, filling the void in her soul with their comforting reassurances. They told her she was strong, that she could live through this. That she did not need anyone. That she did not need to fear anyone.

She did not remember either when the voice of her sister had begun to annoy her. Maybe it always had. The whispers kept telling her that this was nothing to be ashamed of. That it was normal that she resented Anna playing with her parents all the time while she was confined to her room, out of fear that she struck their precious Anna.

Then one day, the whispers had become a real voice, talking to her, guiding her, encouraging her to use her powers. She had frozen most of her room in doing so. She had also thrown away a few useless things, at the suggestion of the voice.

She had come to trust the voice implicitly. She was less frightened than before when she saw ice moving on its own, assuming this was the voice's doing and that it would know what to do.

Meeting Anna face to face during the coronation had been a shock. For a few hours, she had forgotten the voices, and longed to speak more with her sister, now that there were no doors between them. But Anna had ruined everything, again, because of another of her foolish whims. The voice had kept repeating this to her as she was fleeing in the mountain. It had not stopped while she was enjoying her time alone in her own castle.

But the little pest had to come chasing her again. And Elsa had snapped, and the voice had lauded her for that. And encouraged her to strike her sister again, to free herself of this curse of fear placed on her by that wretched Anna.

And she would have done so.

She had been ready to strike her sister with a shard of ice.

Then the voice had yelled, but it was not at her, not at first anyway. It was this man, who had appeared out of nowhere with a second Anna. The voice hated this man.

And then the voice had yelled at her. Told her she was weak for simply throwing her sister away with this big snowman while she could have gotten rid of her once and for all. And of the man, the Doctor. She vaguely remembered a man by that name, but he was not the same.

Now the voice was silent, reduced to a mere whisper. Elsa was truly alone in her castle, as she had dreamed to be. Alone with her thoughts.

Alone with an unexplainable sense of dread at the idea that she had wanted to strike her sister.

She knew the voice would scold her for that, when it returned. She tried to forget it, to tell herself it was all right. She hoped the voice would be more convincing.

Elsa looked up. Someone had entered her castle. Again.

She slowly walked down the big staircase, wondering who the intruder was, and what she would do to him or her.

Heels clattered on the ice below.

Elsa looked down as she reached the final steps.

A green-clad figure was walking hesitantly toward her. The intruder stopped from time to time to clutch her head, and stumbled as if drunk or ill.

Elsa looked at bewilderment at the familiar figure. The dress had the wrong colour, but the face and the hair…

"Who are you?"

The intruder looked up. Elsa felt a pang of panic as two wide blue eyes bore into her.

"I'm you", came the slurred answer.

Elsa noticed the inexplicable twin kept muttering something under her breath.

"Is that one of Anna's tricks?" Elsa asked, feeling the ice tingle at the tip of her fingers.

"No. No tricks." The other Elsa breathed with difficulty. "But Anna. Yes. Talk about Anna."

"Who are you really?"

"You. Future you." Elsa strained her ear to understand what the imposter was muttering between each words. She stepped a few feet closer. "Must talk about Anna" the other woman repeated.

Elsa looked at the imposter. The face, the figure… everything was exactly hers. It was like looking into a mirror. Only the dress was different, with a turquoise colour and some flowery motifs. And Elsa hoped that the haggard and strained expression on the imposter's face was not hers either.

"You can't be me. Who sent you here? How did you enter?" Elsa asked, hoping the voice would soon return to tell her how to handle this.

"Front door" mumbled the other. "Could not open a door behind."

"Ha! If you really were me, you would not have even needed a door!"

The other Elsa raised a hand with difficulty. A silvery spray shot from her fingers and hit the floor, where a little figure of ice took form. Elsa glanced at it. It looked like a baby sleeping.

"So you have my powers… How is that possible?"

"Time travel" the green-clad Elsa mumbled.

"Are you all right?"

"No. Remembering being you."

Elsa looked at this strange twin, wondering if she had misheard.

"If you are from the future, you should remember being me… This is ridiculous! You can't be from the future!"

"Don't care" the other Elsa shrugged. "Want to talk to you about Anna."

"What is there to say about Anna?" Elsa asked, her voice hardening. She heard ice creaking under her feet and tried to focus on the anger that the voice in the ice had kept telling her was justified.

"Remember her." The other Elsa looked as if she was about to fall, but managed to stay upright.

"Remember? I remember her very well! And I'm fed up with that! I'm fed up with Papa and Mama's little girl always knocking on my door, while I had to stay locked in my room. This is over now!"

"No. Remember… baby Anna. Anna in her crib."

"What are you talking about?"

The other Elsa straightened up, looking at her intently.

"Baby Anna. When she was in her crib, so small. Do you remember it?" The green-clad Elsa became more animated, her voice stronger. "She was crying in her crib. You came, and smiled at her, and she stopped crying and looked at you. Do you remember?" she asked again, with more force this time. "You had to stand on tiptoe to look into her crib." Elsa took a step backward, puzzled.

"How do you know… what are you…"

"You remember how she annoyed you by knocking on your door, but that's not what you should remember. Do you remember when you took her in your arms for the first time? She was very, very small, but so were you. She was almost too heavy for you to lift, but you still held her, and she looked at you and she smiled and babbled something. Do you remember one of her first words was 'Za!'? Do you remember this?"

"Of course, I remember that" Elsa said, not really sure she was telling the truth. The voice had never let her think about that for too long.

"Do you remember how you used to make a light snow fall on her crib to make her laugh? And how she asked for it every evening? She would say 'Za Gic' until you did? And laugh and go to sleep immediately afterwards. Do you remember this?" The other Elsa almost shouted, her face becoming strangely serene as she did so, her moves becoming easier.

Something stirred inside Elsa. It was a weakness, the voice in the ice had spent enough time teaching her that. She strained her ear to listen to the comforting whispers, hoping for them to drown out the ramblings of this strange double.

"Do you remember that day, when you were running together, where you stumbled and fell, and scratched your knee? You wanted to cry because it was hurting, and she told you not to because otherwise she would cry too, and she threw herself on the ground because she wanted to be just as hurt as you so that you would not be the only one hurting? Do you remember, Elsa? Do you remember who your sister really is?"

Elsa kept stumbling backward, desperately trying to escape the demented mirror image who was advancing on her mercilessly. Memories that she had long tucked away were now surging in her, threatening the peace of mind in which she had been basking thanks to the soothing words of the voice in the ice. She heard the palace creak around her.

"Do you remember her doll, Elsa?" the green-clad copy asked in a low voice. "Do you remember the little doll she stitched herself for your birthday? Where did you keep it, Elsa? Where is Anna's doll? Was it the doll of Mama and Papa's little girl? Did she stitch it only to annoy you?"

Elsa raised her hand to protect herself. She felt her legs give way under her. A snowy wind began to blow around her, covering the whispers from the ice.

"Do you remember the smile on her face when you told her you loved her doll?" The imposter was now almost shouting. "Do you remember that she told you later that she pricked her finger on the needle many times when doing it, but she did not mind because it was for your gift? Tell me, Elsa, that you are fed up with your sister! Tell me she only wants to annoy you! But remember all of this first! Do you remember, Elsa?"

Elsa sank on her knees. Memories whirled inside her, awakening feelings she thought the voice had helped her bury forever. Snow was whirling around them.

"I know what the voice in the ice had been telling you all these years" the other Elsa said, more calmly. "I remember some of it. I remember how good it felt sometimes when it said I was in my right, and how everyone should be grateful that I did not use my powers to harm them. This voice is evil, Elsa. I think… I think it killed our parents. I'm not sure…" the green-clad woman sagged, looked exhausted. She wearily supported herself on an ice pillar. "I don't know if what I remember is real or not… But I don't care. I remember what I just told you about little Anna. Little Anna in her crib. This is always true. It has not been muddled by the voice. Remember it, Elsa. Please. For Anna. For you."

The dam broke. Emotions washed over Elsa. She buried her face in her hands as the memories of her childhood came back to her, fresh as ever, while the events of the past day kept dancing reproachfully in her mind.

"My little Anna… How could I..."

* * *

Anna and Osmine screamed as the ice blade plunged into the Doctor's chest. Anna covered her mouth in horror, expecting to see the ice emerge from his back, but the blade did not go that far.

"One heart down, one to go" Simeon said triumphantly.

The other blade whizzed toward the Doctor's chest.

And stopped a few centimetres from it.

"It's less… easy… now, isn't it?" the Doctor whispered hoarsely.

He was clutching the blade embedded in his chest with both hands. Frost kept forming on his face and hands. His skin was almost blue in places.

"What are you doing?" Simeon shouted.

"Learning" the Doctor whispered. "Stay where you are" he ordered, briefly turning his head toward the women. Osmine had been scrambling up, retrieving her broken blades, while Anna was cautiously circling the embraced pair, tugging at the weight she felt in her cape.

Simeon swung back his free arm and thrust it again toward the Doctor's chest. But he once again failed to reach it.

"It's funny, isn't it?" the Doctor asked, still speaking with difficulty. "Ever since I saw you today, I have been wondering how you managed to control ice so perfectly as to shape a body and move around. When I met you in London, you could only shape bulky snowmen and a very stiff ice governess." Ice was still forming on his face and hands, creaking. Anna was not actually sure if there still was some of the Doctor's skin to be seen under the white crust.

"Of course, the answer is that you probably established a telepathic link with this poor Platinum, and managed to creep enough into her subconscious so that you would be able to get some control over ice through her."

"What does telepathic mean, Doctor?" Anna could not stop herself from asking. To her surprise, the Doctor, still embraced with the struggling Simeon, answered readily.

"It means the thoughts. The Great Intelligence has invaded your sister's thoughts."

"That's how he made her so angry with me?"

"And control the ice through her. Don't forget that, it's very important."

"Don't you think you are a little late to figure all of this out, Doctor?" Simeon asked furiously. "Especially since one of your hearts has been pierced and you are about to turn into ice?"

"Actually", the Doctor said matter-of-factly, "I think I turned into ice some seconds ago. At least one of my hearts and the left arm. And the kidneys, of course. But I had enough time to prepare for that."

"How can you dream of preparing for that?"

"For instance, I could come into contact with a telepathic entity that took hold in the psyche of a very powerful cryokinetic. Of course, the best way to do that would be to have this entity connect with my nervous system." The Doctor looked up at the Great Intelligence, smiling. "This would be best achieved if some ice, deeply infused by this entity, were to, say, pierce one of my hearts, where you can find lots of nerves around."

For the first time, the ice face of Doctor Simeon registered something else than smugness or anger.

"You're bluffing! You can't do anything! I'm the one who controls Elsa!"

"Yes, through some applied telepathy." The Doctor leaned forward, moving closer to the ice man. "But now I'm very close to your mind, and guess what?" The Doctor stopped smiling, his piercing, unforgiving eyes fixed on Simeon. The fact that one of them looked as if it had just turned to ice did little to reduce their glare. "I'm a telepath, too."

Simeon screamed, bending backward.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm simply blocking the telepathic link you have with Platinum. No link, no control."

"You can't do that" Simeon hissed. "I'll kill your companions if you don't stop."

Ice spikes began growing from the walls, aiming at Anna.

"Two can play that game" the Doctor answered through clenched teeth.

The spikes stopped and slowly retracted into the ice covering the walls. Simeon slowly sank to the ground, his shape wavering.

"You are almost entirely made of ice now! If you break my control over Elsa you will become unable to move as well! You will die, Doctor!"

"That's not something I'm afraid of."

Simeon glanced desperately at Anna, who was still watching the struggle with a fascinated horror.

"If you die, she will be stuck here! It's not her time, I'm sure of that!"

The Doctor looked hesitant for a second.

"Don't mind me" Anna said instantly. "Freeing Elsa is all that counts."

"Go to the TARDIS" the Doctor told her. "You have the key. She will take you back to your time."

He suddenly grunted. Simeon slowly rose from the ground.

"You won't get rid of me that easily, Doctor" he said. "I've spent years entering Elsa's mind. I can…" He stopped. An expression of incredulous horror formed on his face.

"She's… she's rejecting me? How is that possible?"

"Yes!" Anna shouted. "Come on, Elsa!"

"She… she can't reject me… I have been too far from her… I need to…"

"You need to move your consciousness closer to her to reassert your control, or destroy the distraction" the Doctor said fiercely. "Which is what I'm now busy preventing you to do."

"You can't… She can't… No!" Simeon now looked genuinely scared. "Please, Doctor. She's removing my control. If I can't reach out to her I will lose it, you'll die as well…"

The Doctor did not answer. Simeon slowly slid backward and fell on his knees. The ice spike that had been his hand slid out of the Doctor's chest.

"I think you've lost control now", the Doctor said in a slurred voice.

"He's out of Elsa's head now?" Anna asked in a steely voice. "Why is he still moving?"

"Basic.. elemental control. He's trapped... in this ice body. He can't spread.. anywhere else.. for now" the Doctor said in an exhausted whisper.

Anna took a deep breath. Her hand reached into the pocket of her cape on its own accord and closed on Strax's unfamiliar gun.

"So he can't jump to more ice?"

"No... But he could... try to enter... someone's head.. again."

Simeon slowly stood up, his eyes still fixed on the Doctor.

"That does not change the fact that you are dying, Doctor!"

The Doctor took a step backward, clutching at his chest, his body creaking.

"You know what they say" he whispered hoarsely. "Can't win them all…"

The Doctor slowly sank to his knees. Simeon jerkily advanced on him, hissing.

Anna stepped between in front of him.

"Leave him alone" she said, flatly.

"Never!"

"And leave my sister alone!" she shouted with sudden fury.

She brandished Strax's weapon and fired.

The ray of red light seared through the ice man as if it was boiling water. Simeon screamed, stumbling backward. Anna slowly advanced, constantly moving the burning light over him, until he was cornered to a wall. The screaming Simeon flattened himself against the stone, his voice progressively changing as he slowly melted under the glare of the light gun. A few seconds later there was only a boiling puddle into which a few icicles were shrinking fast.

Anna slowly lowered her weapon. She realised she was trembling. She turned around and fell into Osmine's arms.

"It's OK, Anna" she whispered. "You destroyed it."

Anna took multiple deep breaths before trying to answer.

"But the Doctor is dead now…"

"Not quite."

Anna gasped with surprise, breaking the embrace as Osmine whirled around. The Doctor stood up behind them, leaning against a wall. Anna noticed happily that ice was receding from his hands and face.

"I think I'm going better." He clutched at his chest, grunting. "As better as one can be with one heart, anyway. I'll never understand how you people manage it all the time. Still, I can function for a while like that, at least until the other fixes itself." He looked around, concerned. "Did Simeon escape?"

Anna wordlessly pointed to the puddle on the ground. The Doctor looked at her, then whipped out his screwdriver and ran it over the puddle.

"Is he still in the water now?" Anna asked.

"No" the Doctor said, looking at his screwdriver. "Not enough cohesion to maintain a consciousness. He's gone."

Anna looked up at him shyly.

"Did I… mess things up?"

"You destroyed a homicidal consciousness that wanted to enslave Earth and who had brainwashed your sister. Oh, and it was also trying to kill me, and would probably have killed you as well afterwards. What do you think?"

"Did I break the line of time even more?"

"No" the Doctor said gently. "I think you helped fixed it."

"I thought maybe, I could have done something else… Something less…" she struggled for words, then held up the gun "something without this."

The Doctor looked silently at her.

"How do you feel about it?" he asked eventually.

Anna looked at the puddle for a few seconds before answering.

"Punching him did not feel enough" she muttered. "But I… I don't like that. I wanted to be sure he would never hurt Elsa or anybody again but... I… I did not like doing that."

"Good" the Doctor said. He gently took the weapon from Anna's unresisting hands. "Keep thinking like that." The gun disappeared in one of his pockets. "And try not to do things you don't like again, unless that's your only choice."

"Was there another choice?" Anna asked in a small voice. The Doctor flashed a humourless smile.

"Yes. There's always another choice."

"Oh. What should have I done?"

The Doctor shook his head.

"I have no idea." He looked at Anna's surprised expression. "That's the thing about choices. Sometime you can't find them in time."

He smiled, not unkindly this time. Anna looked in the distance thoughtfully before suddenly turning back to him.

"What did you mean, one of your hearts? How many of them do you have?"

* * *

Elsa looked uncertainly at her other self huddled on the floor. The blizzard had ceased blowing through the room, but snow was still falling gently.

"My little Anna… I'm a monster… She'll hate me now..."

Her blue-clad self looked so miserable that Elsa considered hugging her, but she refrained from doing so. Among the jumbled mess that was now her memories was the remembrance that the first person she had hugged in years was Anna. Although she was not quite sure whether that one was still supposed to happen or not, she did not want to deprive herself of a possible happy memory with her sister. Besides, hugging oneself felt wrong somehow, in one of those sinful ways against which they warned you.

"You're not a monster Elsa" she could not refrain herself from saying. "Anna loves you more than you realise… She'll forgive you…" She stopped, partly because she realised she probably should not talk too much to herself about what was going to happen, and partly because the prostrated Elsa did not seem to be actually listening to her any more. "Don't… don't despair, Elsa" she finished lamely.

Another wave of dizziness swept over her. She had been fighting them ever since she had left the TARDIS, as she felt her memories twirl around like the view from a kaleidoscope. She had been exalted enough when she had been talking about Anna to ignore them, but now they were coming back in force.

Stumbling, Elsa turned around, trying to remember what she was supposed to do. She felt exhausted, as if concentrating to keep memories alive had been an actual physical effort.

"Anna in her crib… Conceal, don't feel" she muttered under her breath, trying to latch onto any mantra that would have allowed her to regain some clarity of thought.

She dizzily walked away from her past self. She probably should not be here. None of her memories involved two Elsas being present in the palace, even if she now was really not sure about what had been supposed to happen while she was there.

She found her path blocked by an ice wall. She waved her hand automatically, and saw the ice rearrange itself to form a small arch. She was pretty sure she had tried that when entering, and failed. This probably meant something, but she was too exhausted to ponder it.

Elsa slowly crossed the opening and looked around her. It took her several seconds to make sure that she was back behind the palace, where she remembered the TARDIS had landed. She absentmindedly waved her hand, hearing the wall close itself behind her, and began unsteadily climbing the slope.

She was a few steps away from the ice palace when another wave of dizziness struck her. This time however she was too exhausted to fight it.

Her memories dancing around her, Elsa gently collapsed in the snow.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** The extent of the Doctor's telepathic powers has been shown to vary a lot and Simeon's powers have never been precisely quantified either, so the Doctor's little trick did not seem too exaggerated to me (also, he does have the habit of using an enemy's strength against himself). Still, I hope it does not feel too easy a way out.

I had considered "Do you want to destroy an ice man" as title for this chapter, but I had already used a variation of that for the first chapter. And I don't like to give too much of the plot in chapter titles either.


	11. The End of Ice

"Is that… the wonderful machine you told me about? It looks like a wardrobe."

"Yes it does" Anna answered Osmine's question with a twinkle in her eye. "Can we show her inside, Doctor?"

"Yes, of course" the Doctor said absent-mindedly. He was still clutching at his chest and had been pausing from time to time. He looked at the TARDIS and frowned.

"What the heck does 'Police public call box' mean?" Osmine asked.

The Doctor ignored them and rushed to the door, shaking the handle.

"I still have the key, Doctor" Anna said timidly.

The Doctor snatched the key from her hands and unlocked it.

"Elsa! We're back! We destroyed the ice man!" Anna shouted happily as the Doctor yanked the door open.

"But… it's bigger on the…" Osmine whispered incredulously.

The Doctor strode inside, looking at his sonic screwdriver. Anna followed him, smiling.

"Elsa?"

" _Hello Anna."_ Anna jumped as she saw the transparent Elsa suddenly appear near the console, looking in the distance.

" _I hope this works. I don't know if I'm still around…"_

"Oh no, no, no, you did not do that…" the Doctor jumped to the platform, before doubling over, clutching at his chest. "Argh, I don't need that now! When are you going to be repaired?" he asked, thumping his chest. He turned to the console. "Why did you let her do that?" he shouted.

Anna walked up slowly to the shimmering Elsa.

" _Maybe I'm with you just now and I'm feeling silly… But if I'm not there, if you did not see me… I went trying to tell the other Elsa about our past together. Before the accident."_

"Doctor?" Anna asked quietly, standing in front of the transparent image so that it appeared to be looking right at her.

"Is that… Queen Elsa?" Osmine asked incredulously.

The Doctor was muttering under his breath, jumping from one side of the console to the other.

" _The voice in the ice did not change those memories, it wanted me to forget them… That's how I could stop being angry with you. If I'm not there, I probably disappeared…"_

"Doctor, what is she saying? Did Elsa leave the TARDIS?"

"Yes, she did! The TARDIS let her out!" He flicked more switches. "Ooh, brilliant" he shouted at the console, "so not only you let her out, but you also took her there! Why did you think I locked the door?"

" _Someone has to tell her that. Not you, she's too dangerous, really dangerous for you, much more than I ever was. And the Doctor. Maybe this other woman who was with you? She must not know her. I'm… I'm going now. Maybe see you again, as myself. I hope."_

The shimmering Elsa disappeared. The Doctor hit the console violently.

"What is wrong with you!" he shouted. "Did you really think it was the time to go all sentimental?"

"Doctor! What is happening? Tell me!"

The Doctor sighed and leaned on the console.

"Platinum has managed to coerce the TARDIS into letting her out. I had locked her in, you know, to prevent just that. It even took her to the ice palace when we had been before. Activated the fast return switch all by itself."

"But… you said she was going to disappear if she left the TARDIS…"

"Yes. Well obviously it did not happen right away, or the TARDIS would not have left her leave. I hope" he added severely, looking at the room around them. He turned back to Anna. "What was she saying anyway? Oh and by the way" he added sarcastically, turning to the console, "feel free to let anyone use you as an answering machine. Why do you have to make it so hard to program you to deliver a message to the right person if you are ready to do it for anyone who asks nicely?"

"She… said she wanted to talk with… herself… about… our past" Anna said hesitantly. "I think. Is it possible to hear her again, Madame TARDIS? I did not listen very well..."

"No" the Doctor said firmly, flicking a switch. "The TARDIS is not an answering machine. When you hear something, you have to remember it on the first go. You never know if you are going to get a second chance or not."

"Anna is right" Osmine said. "Queen Elsa said that there was something in their memories that the ice man did not change, but wanted her to forget. How did that work, anyway?"

The Doctor looked in the distance, furrowing his brow. "Oh. So this is why."

"Why what, Doctor?"

He smiled suddenly.

"Well, why Simeon said that Platinum was rejecting him, of course. Your sister must have been able to reach out to herself. Well done. Of course" he went on, in almost the same tone of voice, "this does not change the fact that she may have disappeared."

Anna frowned, doing her best to understand.

"But… if the ice man is… has stopped to make her angry… the line of time can become normal again, right? So Elsa should stop disappearing?"

"You're forgetting temporal inertia." The Doctor jumped behind the console and began flicking switches. "Just as you did not disappear instantly, she may still disappear before time resets itself. If it resets itself." The sound of the TARDIS taking off echoed in the room.

"What's happening?" Osmine asked curiously, looking around her.

"Oh, the TARDIS is moving. We will appear somewhere else" Anna answered excitedly. "Why should not time become normal again, Doctor?"

"Your sister rejected the Great Intelligence, but if she disappeared, she may not be back to how you know her."

* * *

Elsa felt as if she was falling. There was no ground below her. Come to think of it, there was nothing above her either.

Her mind spun, echoing with strange thoughts that seemed to come from all directions around her.

Memories and events flashed past her, twisting, shifting, disappearing into the void, as her timeline unravelled, flickering between the alternatives, trying to latch onto a coherent chain of events.

Her mind now a tiny dot of consciousness, stripped of past and future, floated between the alternatives.

And for a split second, she could hear the thoughts of thousands of other Elsas across the universe. Elsas that she could have been, that she would never be, or Elsas that were simply echoes of herself, living in different universes that she would never be able to visit, not even with the TARDIS.

For the briefest of instants, she became one with these other Elsas. Voices and thoughts vibrated in her mind, as she became the one speaking and thinking them.

" _I consent, Anna. Marry Hans, be happy."_

" _Nice to meet you, Anna. I'm the Snow Queen. Now run for your life."_

" _Oh my dear Hans… If only there was someone out there who loved you…"_

" _My mutation gave me cold powers. Can you help me to control them, Professor?"_

" _Please let me come with you, Father. I'd stay in the hold while the ship is at sea."_

" _No, Anna… I am your sister."_

The thoughts whirled and disappeared almost as soon as they came, their memories leaving Elsa's mind instantly.

Time shifted. Elsa's timeline snapped back.

A cavalcade of remembrances poured in her mind, some of them feeling right and natural, others dissonant like a wrong note in a symphony.

Anna in her crib. Herself freezing the ballroom. Anna sliding lifelessly down a slope of snow. Children singing for Anna's birthday. Kristoff stepping in front of Anna as she prepared to shoot ice at her. The bishop asking her to remove her gloves. Anna hugging her on the frozen fjord. Herself throwing a doll under a wardrobe in anger. Olaf eating Anna's birthday cake. Herself crying in her frozen room. Anna smiling as she showed her a doll, safely locked in her jewellery box.

The whirling of memories slowed down, as they reorganised themselves into something that looked like a coherent life, although some of them still emerged from the mess like a badly adjusted piece in a puzzle.

A memory rose. For a few seconds, Elsa lived or relived it.

 _There were guards, firing at her, cornering her. They had invaded her own home, her palace, her sanctuary. She had begged them to go, but they did not want to obey._

 _There had been… something… from the ice, that had made her angry, making her feel as if she was the one others should be afraid of. She could not remember what it was and she never would. It had disappeared now. Or maybe it had never been there and she had only dreamed it._

 _Maybe this otherworldly hunch had been right. Maybe it was the others who had to huddle in the corners, whimpering in fear. She could dispose of these guards. She was in her home, after all, her domain._

 _She unleashed the fury of her powers, pushing one guard on the balcony over the precipice, aiming at the throat of the other with her ice spikes. It was so easy. Maybe this really was the way to go._

" _Don't be the monster they fear you are."_

 _Anna. Anna feared her. She had done something to Anna that would make her fear she was a monster. Or maybe she had dreamed it as well?_

 _Elsa stopped, feeling lost. The memory of the strange feeling from the ice and its teachings faded forever into oblivion. She turned around..._

The memory slowly receded in the distance with the sound of ice crashing.

Elsa opened her eyes.

* * *

"Hello Elsa! How are you feeling?"

"Don't rush her" the Doctor scolded as he ran the sonic screwdriver over Elsa's body. "Her temporal cohesion seems to be back to normal, but her mind needs some time to recover. She came very close from being removed from the timeline. This is not a pleasant experience, I assure you, even if you come back from it."

"Did it happen to you?" Anna asked curiously, cradling her sister's head as Elsa blinked, looking dreamily around her.

"A lot of things happen to me" the Doctor said non-committally. "Hello, Platinum? Can you hear me?"

Elsa nodded drowsily.

"What is the last thing you remember?"

"Leave her alone! I thought we were not supposed to rush her!"

"You are not. I am. Please, Elsa" he asked, placing his hands on Elsa's temples, "it is important. What do you remember?"

Elsa swallowed a few times before answering in a slurred voice.

"Anna in her crib."

The Doctor turned his head sharply toward Anna.

"Were you in a crib recently?" he asked insistently.

"Err… no? Well, there was this time Kristoff and I were visiting the Trolls and they absolutely wanted to offer us one..." Anna blushed. "Anyway Elsa was not with us that day" she added quickly.

"Had to speak with myself" Elsa volunteered, trying to focus on Anna. "Don't want you to think I'm a monster." She glanced at the Doctor, blinking. "The TARDIS helped me. I'm sorry I called her a machine, she's very nice…" Her gaze fell on Osmine. "Do I know you?" she asked drowsily. "I think I've seen you before". Her eyes slowly closed. "'m tired" she mumbled. "Oh, that's it, you're Clara, nice to see you again" she muttered once more. Her eyes blinked open suddenly. "Hey, Doctor, you don't have ice in your heart any more!" she exclaimed happily, before slumping back on the couch, smiling faintly as her eyes closed. "I l'v'you lil' sistrr" she mumbled one last time.

"She's all right", the Doctor exclaimed, jumping on his feet. "Just let her rest and she will be back to her own cold-making self. Now, Osmine" he said, grabbing the young woman by the shoulder, "I heard you wanted to travel. Where do you want to go?"

* * *

The Doctor flicked switches on the console.

"Is your heart OK, Doctor?" Anna asked. She was crouching near the chair where Elsa was sleeping, holding her sister's hand.

"Yes, it just restarted. I really don't know how you humans can cope with only one of those."

Anna looked at him curiously.

"Who is Osmine, Doctor?"

"What? You should know that better than me. She's from your time period, after all."

Anna smiled sweetly.

"You know, Doctor, I am certainly less smart than Elsa and probably than you as well, but I'm not stupid."

She carefully placed Elsa's hand back in her sister's lap, then stood up and walked to the console, counting on her fingers.

"You acted very strange with her. For one, you never called her with a funny name. And you told her you trusted her." Anna leaned on the console, smiling impishly. "And you sacrificed yourself for her when you stepped in front of the ice blade instead of her. That's what I did for Elsa" she added, suddenly serious, "and that's what thawed my heart. Do you love Osmine, Doctor?"

The Doctor guffawed.

"I had never seen her before in my life! Do you actually believe in, what do they call it, love at first sight?"

"Not any more" Anna said, her smile disappearing for a second. "Was it really the first time you met her anyway?"

"I already told you I don't love people, Freckles. And my heart was thawed simply because I was able to remove the ice inside it while I was linked to Simeon. If you will remember, this gave me a minor control over ice, and removing this particular sliver was among one of my priorities."

Anna looked at him dubiously for a few seconds. The Doctor punched more buttons, concentrating on the console.

"Elsa called her Clara…" she mused. "But you called her like that as well!" she exclaimed.

"I did not" the Doctor said, jumping to another side of the console and very meticulously turning a small handle.

"Yes you did. It was after we fell out of the window… And Clara… Oh! That was the name of the woman who visited Elsa when we were little, when you built snowmen with me… The you who had a bow tie and was nicer." Anna looked in the distance, her brow furrowing. "But she can't be the same woman because she should have been younger then… Wait, you can travel in time… So she can be the Osmine from now… But that was the other you, you said it was from before…" Anna drew lines with her fingers on the console. "So… she travelled with the you from before, but after now… And that's how you know her! You already know her, but she does not know you yet!" She carefully wiped the console. "Whew! Time travel is complicated."

The Doctor was suddenly standing by her side. Anna looked up to discover him smiling faintly.

"Not bad for a pudding-brain" he said. "Completely wrong, of course, but you get points for trying. I did meet someone in this fashion once…" His voice trailed off as he looked in the distance. "Anyway, Osmine is not Clara. She's… an echo. Like Simeon split into different individuals who appear along my timeline to try killing me, Clara did the same to help me. Osmine is one of these echoes."

"I'm not sure I understand, Doctor."

"I don't expect you to. Few people do anyway."

There was a pause, as Anna looked at the sleeping Elsa.

"So you love her? Clara?"

"I… care about her. She's someone I rely on."

"Maybe it counts as true love, then."

"Did not you listen? I told you I removed the ice by myself! What is with you humans trying to see love everywhere it is not…" The Doctor strode theatrically to the other side of the console.

Anna looked at him, smiling mischievously.

"What is it with you men not liking to say you love people?" she asked playfully. The Doctor snorted.

"So, is the line of time fixed now, Doctor?" Anna asked after a few seconds, her tone more serious. "Can we go home?"

"Time has been untangled enough that the TARDIS can travel to your original time period again. As for the timeline, there is only one way to check, isn't it? When did Platinum thaw the country?"

"The next morning" Anna answered promptly. "That's also when my heart was thawed."

The door of the TARDIS opened to let in Osmine, carrying a large bag.

"Here I am!" she said. "I'm ready to see the world."

"Where would you like to start?" the Doctor asked theatrically, punching a button.

"Well… I know it's not far from here but… I always dreamed of visiting London. It's such a great city…"

"Good choice" the Doctor said, slamming a lever. The sound of the TARDIS filled the room. "London it is then. Who knows" he added mysteriously, "maybe you'll raise a family there."

"I hope not! I'd love to see more of the world… Maybe the Americas! Or the rest of Europe..."

"But first" the Doctor said, "we have to check something."

* * *

"I assure you Anna, I can walk by myself now" Elsa insisted as Anna carefully helped her out of the TARDIS. "My head is much clearer now."

"You were still sleeping five minutes ago. I know you wake up faster than me, but…"

"Where are… Oh."

Both sisters became silent as they looked down the snowy slope on which the TARDIS had landed, to the frozen fjord spreading in the bay.

Snowflakes were suspended in the air. Osmine curiously poked one of them.

A blue-clad figure could be seen huddled on the ice, a grey-clad silhouette towering over it. Dozens of meters apart, a magenta figure was stumbling on the ice.

"That's… that's when you…"

"I yelled at you. In the palace. I was so hurtful…" Elsa whispered. "I remember it… It's what happened, right, Doctor?"

"Yes. You may still remember the old timeline, but the part where you tried to strike your sister did happen."

"If… If Anna fears me… If she's angry with me… she won't try to…" Elsa looked at her sister in horror. "Your heart would not be thawed this time…"

"It would take more than you yelling at me to make me give up on you, Elsa."

Down on the ice, the magenta figure ran to the two other ones. It reached them just in time to step between them, before turning into a clearer shade of blue.

"See? I told you" Anna said, trying to sound matter-of-factly and failing at it. "Hey, I got to… to watch me turn into an ice statue after all" she added in a faltering voice.

They all looked downward as the blue clad figure embraced the icicle. Very long seconds passed before it changed back to its magenta colour.

"Is it over now?" the Doctor asked.

"No, it was only the beginning, Doctor" Elsa whispered, as she turned and embraced her sister as tightly as her counterpart was doing hundredths of meters afar.

The Doctor and Osmine looked as ice disappeared from the fjord and the surrounding city.

"That's amazing" Osmine said finally.

The Doctor smiled at her.

"Let's go. London awaits you." He looked at the still embraced sisters at his side and those on the ship below them. "Hugs" he muttered, shaking his head as he stepped back into the TARDIS.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I considered for a while having Hans' party bring back the wrong Elsa at the castle, but that plot twist was going nowhere interesting (the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver make breaking people out of prison too easy, and I did not want to muddle the Frozen timeline too much).  
I also thought of Anna hesitating a second longer before going to protect her sister, but this time I really could not see how to get out of that one.

I'm purposefully leaving unclear the reasons for the Doctor's heart thawing, so you can chose which explanation you like better: did he manage to thaw while he was connected to Simeon, or was it he protecting Osmine that counted as an act of true love? Or maybe it was the TARDIS moving by itself to help Elsa that counted as one? Or simply his Time Lord physiology taking care of the ice…

I love imagining alternate universes or what-ifs, but not enough to write about all of those I think about, so I had some fun with the lines from the alternate Elsas instead (although one of the lines appears in one of my fics and another is close to one I'm working on).

Now, onwards to the epilogue!


	12. Elsa's choice

"There!" The Doctor slammed back the lever as the chord signalling the landing of the TARDIS echoed in the room. "Arendelle, five minutes after you left."

Anna walked cautiously to the door and gingerly opened it. She whirled around, grinning.

"It's summer again!" She strode out of the TARDIS. "Kristoff! I'm back!" came her triumphant voice.

Elsa smiled sweetly as she too stepped out of the TARDIS, looking at her sister running around the courtyard. She turned around to the Doctor standing in the doorway.

"Thank you, Doctor" she said eventually.

"Don't thank me. I am partly responsible for what happened to you today. I brought the proto-Great Intelligence to your room. And because of that, Simeon arrived here when he wanted to kill me."

"But you fixed it."

The Doctor smiled.

"You helped."

"The TARDIS helped as well."

"Yes" the Doctor said severely. "She can be a sentimental old girl sometimes. Apparently she trusted you enough to fix this without disappearing."

"It… she is really… alive?"

"No. She's much more than that. But you can call her alive if you want."

"Are there… others... like her?"

"Until further notice, she is the last of her kind in this universe. All her sisters are… elsewhere."

Elsa blinked and gently patted the blue panels. "So you already knew" she whispered. "I'm sorry…"

"Hello, Elsa! What is this blue box?" came a cheerful voice at waist level.

Elsa bent down to look at a snowy face under a little cloud.

"Hello Olaf", she said. "Nice to see you again."

"It's glad to see you too, Elsa! I had not seen you all morning as you were working in your room!"

Elsa passed a hand over her face. The stack of papers on her desk seemed to have happened ages ago. "Of course, it was only this morning…"

She stepped back.

"Olaf, this is the Doctor. Doctor, this is Olaf…"

"I know" the Doctor said. "I've met him before. You were there, do you remember?"

"Of course but… he's the real Olaf, this time" she said, smiling.

"Hello, Thedoctor. I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs."

The Doctor scowled.

"Uh. Hugs. Fitting for an ice-cream brain."

"I don't have a brain" Olaf answered earnestly. "You don't like hugs, the Doctor?"

"No. Besides, you are a snowman. Is not a warm hug suicidal?"

Elsa turned to the Doctor, her face serious.

"Doctor… who am I?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Which Elsa am I, now?"

She felt a gentle poking on her waist.

"You… are the Elsa standing in front of me?" Olaf offered hesitantly.

The Doctor smiled.

"That is rather perceptive, for an ice-cream brain. Also, not wrong, and probably not the answer you were expecting either?"

"No… sorry Olaf. But you see… I remember… different things. I remember how things happened when there was nothing in the ice, but I also remember… a few times when there was. I remember not realising I had struck Anna when she came in the ice palace, and I also remember…" Elsa paused, absent-mindedly stroking Olaf's head. "And I remember today, and going there to talk to myself, and… I'm not really sure what happened next, actually. I'm pretty sure I spoke with myself, and I think I also remember from last year imagining a clone of me with a green dress, but I also remember nothing like that happened…" She looked puzzled, smiling faintly. "Oh, I also remember sleeping in Anna's room for a few nights while the window of my own room was getting replaced. I remember this not happening, but this time I'm actually glad it did. It was fun sleeping in the same room again."

"You travelled in the TARDIS. This allows you to remember time that was rewritten. Although, in that case, you were very involved in these events, so your memory is muddled. And since the timeline was fixed before you disappeared, you still remember the original timeline. Nothing exceptional here. Oh, and, since you managed to reject the Great Intelligence, you probably forgot most of what happened while you were under its influence, so it's a good thing you had something else to remember."

"But, Doctor… What exactly happened last year? You said that in this timeline, I yelled at Anna… So… Did I also try to… strike her? Knowingly?"

"This is probably what happened, yes."

Elsa held her head. Before she found something to say, the Doctor spoke again.

"But what is important is what you remember. Time and memories are not always the same thing." He gestured in the direction of the sunny courtyard around them. "Does this look like a kingdom where the queen tried to strike her sister?"

"But it… it happened…So… now I'm someone who could try to… do that. Even if I remember never wanting to do it as well."

"So, you are complaining to have a choice?" the Doctor said severely. "People usually dream to have this kind of choice."

"What? What choice? Striking Anna?"

"No. Choosing who you are. You have two different memories of your life. Time does not contradict either of them. You can choose which one you like." The Doctor smiled without irony. "Is it not great? Being able to choose what happened in your life?"

"But… I did try to strike Anna. It's something that could have happened…"

The Doctor sighed.

"There is something else you may be overlooking" he said, curtly. Elsa looked at him, puzzled. "You do remember our first trip in the future?"

"Oh, of course… But that future will not happen any more, right?"

"No it won't."

"And your friends from London… They never fought the Ice Beasts?"

"No. They stayed warmly at home, eating some criminals. Only Vastra does that" he added, looking at Elsa's shocked expression. "I did tell her she should change her diet. She might remember some of this story" he mused. "Being millions of years old can do wonders for your resistance to time alterations. I'd have to check up on her…" He shook his head. "Anyway. The Great Intelligence planned to take control of you, and through you, freeze the entire world." He looked at Elsa, smiling. "And he succeeded. That's when the Ice Beasts attacked the castle, and winter began to spread to other countries. I can safely that at this point you had stopped resisting it and were completely under his control."

Elsa looked at the Doctor for a few seconds.

"But… this happened… 50 years from now?"

"Yes. That's the time Great Intelligence needed to turn you into his puppet." He fixed his piercing blue eyes on her. "People sometimes wonder how easy it would be to break them. Few get to have an answer before being broken in the first place, and those who do find out it's much shorter than they expected to be." He smiled. "From my personal experience, 50 years is not bad, for a human."

Elsa held his gaze for a few seconds.

"Thank you", she said eventually.

"Are we playing charades?" Olaf asked. He had been looking back and forth at Elsa and the Doctor during their conversation. "Because I don't think I got that one."

Elsa smiled at him. "I'm sorry, Olaf. I'll explain… well, I'll try anyway. Where is Anna?"

"Oh, she went looking for Kristoff. That's a bit strange, because they were walking together not long ago, and she told me Kristoff was leaving for a delivery…"

The Doctor nodded and took a step back into the TARDIS.

"Wait, Doctor!" Elsa called. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know. Somewhere warm, maybe. Or taking skating lessons."

"Is your heart OK, now? The one that was frozen, if you really have two of them" she added, smiling incredulously.

"Yes, thank you." The Doctor raised a hand. "Thawed, repaired, and without any act of true love, whatever your sister may think."

"I don't think I have a heart either" Olaf interjected.

"Yes you do" Elsa said offhandedly. She crossed her arms and cocked her head. "I had been wondering, Doctor. Why did you help us? Before we even knew that it was the voice in the ice… Simeon… who had changed the timelines?"

The Doctor shrugged.

"Why not?"

"You could have simply left."

"That's not my style. I'm the Doctor. I try to help people."

"Even those you don't know?"

"I can't know everyone."

Elsa smiled faintly.

"What?" the Doctor barked.

"Nothing. I was thinking that I know what it's like to want to protect people and not telling them. It also took me time to learn this could also be called love."

The Doctor smirked, then took another step back into the TARDIS.

"Well, your Majesty, it's time for me to…"

"Wait!"

Anna appeared, out of breath, dragging a reluctant Kristoff behind her.

"Wait! Please, Doctor! I just want to show Kristoff the TARDIS!"

"The TARDIS is not a museum exhibit that you can show to anyone!" the Doctor said gruffly.

"But he's not anyone! He's my fiancé!"

"Oh, I see. He's the ice harvester whose live you saved back there. OK, now you saw it. Goodbye!"

"Please, Doctor! I wanted to show him how big it is inside. He does not believe me…"

"You saved my life?" Kristoff asked, puzzled.

"One year ago" the Doctor said. "That's not very nice to forget so quickly your future fiancée saving you from a mind-controlled version of her sister."

"Please, Doctor… Just a quick look! Oh, and I also have to return this coat!"

"You can keep the coat" the Doctor said gruffly, sliding into the TARDIS.

"You're a killjoy" Anna said, pouting. She laid a hand against the box. "Madame TARDIS is nicer than you." She leaned conspiratorially toward the frame. "Thanks for listening to Elsa, Madame TARDIS."

"Doctor, wait!" Elsa said suddenly. The Doctor popped his head out of the door.

"What now?"

"You said what happened today was partly your fault…"

"Yes, but I fixed it!"

"You gave Osmine a ride to London. Could not we just get a ride there too? Just a few hours? We've never been there either."

"Osmine… helped us."

"You said we helped you too! Just a quick trip, to see how it's like to travel in the TARDIS and not end up in Arendelle in the past or the future!"

"Osmine had to be moved away from Arendelle" the Doctor said, looking embarrassed. "Your sister did not remember meeting her for the past year, so I had to make sure the timeline was not altered more than it was…"

"You really are nice to her, aren't you?" Anna said, smiling mischievously.

The Doctor sagged.

"Fine" he said at length. "One trip. Just one trip. And not far from here!"

"Oh thank you Doctor, thank you" Anna said, moving forward as if to hug him. The Doctor backed up.

"No hugs" he said.

"He does not like hugs" Olaf said in an accusatory tone.

"Can Kristoff come? And Olaf?"

"I'm not a transportation service! Your boyfriend and ice-cream brain can wait here! We can be back the instant we leave."

"Come on, Doctor, please? Just to show them how it's inside?"

"They can see the inside, then" the Doctor relented, opening the door and stepping back. He raised a finger. "But they won't travel with us!" he added, looking severely at Anna. "And the elk does not come inside!" he added, pointing at Sven who was ambling by.

* * *

The large reindeer looked with puzzlement as everyone stepped into the small box. He cocked his head from one side to another, trying to understand why the box was not bursting after so many people went inside.

Sven walked slowly to the ajar door, just in time to hear the older man shout.

"Don't touch that, ice-cream brain!"

The door slammed in front of Sven's snout.

The ears of the reindeer swivelled as a strange sound filled the air. He jumped backward as a gust of wind hit him.

Under Sven's incredulous eyes, the box became transparent, as the sound slowly receded. Soon there was nothing on the cobbles, while a distant chord died.

Sven brayed a few times, then walked where the box had been, sniffing the ground. It felt as if it had never been there. More disquieting was the fact that this was also the case for Kristoff, Anna, Elsa and Olaf.

Sven looked around and brayed a few more times. There was no answer, apart from curious looks from people walking around the courtyard.

Sven cocked his head. There seemed to be only one course of action available.

The large reindeer sat on his haunches and waited patiently.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Yup, this is the end.

In my first notes for this story, the villain of the story was going to be the Master, then I found that the Great Intelligence's _modus operandi_ was so well suited to target Elsa that it was too tempting to use him there. Also, I had planned to have a Clara timeclone living in Arendelle from the start, so having Simeon there as well made some kind of sense.

Also, in my first drafts, I intended to simply have the Doctor say goodbye to everyone and leave. Then I realised it was funnier to have everyone leave with him in an open ending. And then it happened that I got the idea for an adventure for all of them… So there should be a sequel to this story in the next months, or maybe next year (and, if not, I'll write a little epilogue to avoid leaving Sven waiting forever). Stay tuned!

Anyway, thanks for reading this story, I hope you liked it!


End file.
